UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA 


FROM   THE    LIBRARY    OF. 

PROFESSOR  FELICIEN  VICTOR  PAGET 

BY  BEQUEST  OF  MADAME  PAGET 


Spiritual  Interpretation  of  tfje  Scriptures 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL 


BY 

JOHN    WORCESTER 


BOSTON  : 

MASSACHUSETTS   NEW-CHURCH   UNION, 

1 6   ARLINGTON  STREET, 

1898 


Copyright   18^7 
BY  JOHN   WORCESTER. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

THE  GENEALOGY  IN  MATTHEW 5 

THE  GENEALOGY  IN  LUKE 23 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  LORD  IN  THE  WORD 32 

THE  BAPTISM 40 

THE  TEMPTATIONS 41 

THE  MINISTRY  IN  GALILEE 45 

THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT      48 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  LORD'S  PREACHING  IN  THE  NATURAL 

LIFE 57 

THE  MISSION  OF  THE  APOSTLES 69 

THE  RELATION  TO  JOHN'S  TEACHING    . 72 

CONFLICT  WITH  JEWISH  TEACHING 76 

DEATH  OF  JOHN 81 

JESUS  REVIVES  JOHN'S  WORK 83 

MISSION  TO  THE  GENTILES 87 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION   . 91 

LAST  APPEALS  IN  GALILEE 97 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 100 

EXPLORATION  OF  THE  TEMPLE  OF  GOD 109 

THE  CONDEMNATION 119 

PREDICTIONS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 123 

JUDGMENT  AND  DELIVERANCE  —  THE  PASSOVER  TIME.  130 

THE  LAYING  DOWN  THE  LIFE 134 

COERCION  OF  THE  WORLD  BY  THE  CHURCH 142 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  RELATION  TO  GOD 147 

THE  NEW  STATE  OF  THE  CHURCH 152 

RETURN  TO  GALILEE 154 


To  be  of  use,  this  sketch  of  Matthew's  Gospel  must  be  read 
in  close  connection  with  the  Bible  words. 

The  chapters  on  the  Genealogies  have  their  value  as  connect- 
ing the  New  Testament  with  the  Old,  and  indicating  the  lines  of 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  as  the  Word  which  was 
made  flesh. 


THE   SPIRITUAL  INTERPRETATION 
OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 


THE  GENEALOGY  IN  MATTHEW. 


'THHE  genealogy  of   the  Lord   Jesus  is    called 

in  Matthew,  "  The  book  of  the  generation  of 

Jesus     Christ,    the    son    of    David,    the    son    of 

Abraham."        Evidently     this     means 

CHAPTER 

L  that  in  Jesus  is  fulfilled    the  promise 

to  David,  "thy  seed  will  I  establish  for  ever/' 
and  the  promise  to  Abraham,  "in  thee  shall  all 
families  of  the  earth  be  blessed."  In  other 
words,  the  line  of  representatives  of  the  Lord,  or 
of  the  Divine  which  was  to  be  made  flesh  and 
dwell  with  men,  leads  to  and  is  fulfilled  in  the 
Lord  Jesus,  who  is  the  son  and  the  heir  of  David 
and  of  Abraham.  This  is  the  common  interpre- 


MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 


tation  of  intelligent  commentators,  and  does  not 
require  any  confirmation. 

Still,  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  narrative 
by  Matthew,  whose  other  name  was  Levi,  places 
special  emphasis  upon  the  events  of  the  Lord's 
life  as  fulfilling  the  Scriptures  —  frequently  using 
such  expressions  as,  "  Now  all  this  is  come  to 
pass  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
by  the  Lord  through  the  prophet,"  or,  "that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  Lord 
through  the  prophet."  Also  it  is  Matthew  who  so 
perfectly  preserves  the  transformation  of  the 
Jewish  law  into  the  Christian  law,  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount. 

It  might  therefore  be  expected  that  a  genealogy 
of  the  Lord  by  Matthew  would  give  us  the  steps 
by  which  the  Lord  became  the  Word  and  the 
fulfilment  of  it ;  or,  in  other  words,  would  be  the 
genealogy  of  the  Lord  as  the  Son  of  Man. 

An  examination  of  the  genealogy  itself  con- 
firms this  view.  It  begins  with  Abraham.  And 
we  are  taught  in  the  New  Church  that  Abraham 


REPRESENTATIVES  OF  CHILDHOOD.  7 

in  his  simple  pastoral  life,  his  call  to  leave  the 
land  of  his  nativity,  and  his  sojourn  under  the 
Divine  protection  and  guidance  in  the  land  of 
Canaan,  represents  the  child's  first  state  of  in- 
struction, in  which  he  is  taught  of  God  and 
heaven,  and  of  the  possibilities  of  the  life  of 
heaven,  different  from  the  natural  life.  As 
applied  to  the  Lord,  he  represents  the  Lord's 
state  in  early  boyhood,  when  His  love  of  knowing 
was  awakened,  and  He  was  taught  of  the  Father 
the  possibilities  of  His  redeeming  and  saving 
work  for  men.  And  this  was  the  beginning  of 
the  acquisition  of  the  Word,  from  which  the  Lord 
was  called  the  Son  of  Man. 

Abraham  himself  represents  the  affection  for 
being  taught  of  Divine  things,  and  the  sense  of 
their  holiness,  which  so  touches  the  heart  of  a 
little  child  when  the  Bible  is  reverently  read  to 
him  ;  and  which  is  a  consequence  of  the  openness 
of  childhood's  innocence  to  the  Lord  and  heaven, 
and  its  sensitiveness  to  the  presence  of  these  in 
the  Scriptures.  In  the  Lord  it  was  the  Divine 


8  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

Itself  in  the  Word,  received  in  its  Divine  holiness 
in  the  child's  inmost  consciousness.  Isaac  then 
represents  the  child's  intelligence  concerning 
Divine  and  heavenly  things ;  which  intelligence  is 
so  full  and  clear  that  there  is  nothing  of  the  Lord 
and  heaven  which  can  be  explained  to  manhood's 
most  highly  trained  reason,  which  cannot  also  be 
presented  as  to  its  essential  elements  to  the  mind 
of  a  child,  and  seen  in  clear  light.  Therefore 
little  children  are  in  the  province  of  the  eyes  in 
the  heavens,  and  they  first  receive  in  simplicity 
the  truths  of  life  in  which  the  Lord  would  instruct 
the  heavens. 

If  this  simple  intelligence  of  childhood  in  re- 
gard to  the  living  relations  between  God  and  man, 
is  represented  by  Isaac,  the  formulation  of  varied 
knowledge  from  the  Word  in  regard  to  the  nature 
of  heaven,  and  of  the  life  of  heaven  upon  the 
earth,  is  meant  by  Jacob  and  his  twelve  sons. 
The  further  development  of  the  memory  of  knowl- 
edge is  meant  by  their  sojourn  in  Egypt.  And 
then  the  difficult  training  of  the  boy  or  girl  to 


REPRESENTATIVES  OF  YOUTH. 


habits  of  good  order,  in  obedience  to  these  truths 
of  good  life  —  now  in  the  form  of  personal  com- 
mands —  is  meant  by  the  discipline  of  the  wilder- 
ness, and  the  life  in  Canaan  under  the  Judges. 

Thus  the  fourteen  generations  from  Abraham 
to  David  represent  the  complete  instruction  of 
childhood  in  the  truths  of  the  Word,  and  the 
training  to  obey  them. 

David  and  the  generations  from  him,  represent 
the  developments  of  youth  which  follow  those  of 
childhood.  For  David  and  the  seed  of  David 
represent  the  Divine  truth  ruling  in  the  church  or 
in  the  mind.*  But  it  is  the  truth  not  now  re- 
ceived obediently  as  in  childhood,  but  rationally ; 
and  applied  to  the  arranging  of  all  things  of  the 
mind  in  their  true  relations  and  order,  the  com- 
bating and  expelling  heterogeneous  things,  and 
harmonizing  the  homogeneous.  This  was  repre- 
sented by  the  consolidation  of  the  kingdom  in 
David's  hands,  and  the  subjugation  of  the  nations 
around.  The  constant  warfare  of  David  repre- 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  444. 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


sents  the  labor  in  temptations  by  which  this  was 
accomplished  in  the  Lord  ;  and  the  peacefulness 
of  the  reign  of  Solomon  represents  the  restful 
enjoyment  of  good  when  the  conflicts  were  over. 

But  king  Solomon  became  a  worshipper  of 
many  gods  ;  and  after  his  days  the  kingdom  was 
divided,  and  the  northern  and  southern  portions, 
under  separate  lines  of  kings  —  mostly  evil,  but 
partly  good  —  entered  upon  a  career  which  ended 
in  their  respective  captivities  in  Assyria  and 
Babylon. 

The  meaning  of  this  is  illustrated  by  the  appli- 
cation of  the  story  to  the  church  which  the  Lord 
established.  In  this  application,  the  temple  which 
Solomon  built  represents  the  church  which  re- 
ceived the  Lord  truly  ;  but  his  many  wives  and 
their  idolatries  represent  the  many  religions  which 
received  something  of  Christian  life  from  the 
Lord,  together  with  much  thatVas  perverse  and 
false.*  And  then  .the  division  of  the  kingdom, 
and  the  separate  development  of  the  northern 

*  Divine  Providence,  245. 


DE  VEL  0PM ENT  OF  REASONING.  j  x 

kingdom  of  Israel,  represents  the  separation  of  the 
thought  of  the  church  from  the  life,  and  the  ele- 
vation of  standards  of  doctrine  as  the  essentials  of 
the  church.  This  change  took  place  within  the 
first  four  centuries  of  the  existence  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  ;  and  then  what  was  left  of  the  life  of 
the  church  was  merely  the  natural  benevolences, 
defiled  by  the  claim  of  Divine  authority  by  the 
priesthood,  and  by  the  worship  of  popes  and  saints 
and  relics. 

The  captivity  in  Assyria  represented  the  vasta- 
tion  of  spiritual  truth  by  doctrinal  reasoning  from 
self-intelligence,  till  there  was  no  spiritual  truth, 
no  living  knowledge  of  the  Lord  and  heaven,  left 
in  the  church.  The  captivity  in  Babylon  meant 
the  vastation  of  the  good  of  the  church  till  there 
was  no  spiritual  good,  no  sense  of  inward  life  from 
the  Lord,  left  in  the  church  ;  but  only  natural 
good  and  external  worship. 

At  first  glance  it  seems  impossible  that  there 
should  have  been  any  such  development  as  this  in 
the  Lord's  life,  or  any  application  of  this  part  of 


I2  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

the  story  to  Him.  And  yet  there  was  in  Him  a 
change  from  the  openness  of  infancy  to  the  rela- 
tive obscurity  of  later  boyhood.  And  if  the 
development  that  we  are  now  considering,  is  in 
any  sense  a  natural  development  of  the  human 
mind,  it  is  evident  that  it  must  have  affected  Him 
as  well  as  the  church.  That  it  was  of  this  nature 
will  be  evident  from  a  little  attention  to  the 
quality  of  the  Christian  Church  as  first  founded 
by  the  Lord. 

And  first  we  observe  that  it  came  at  the  time 
of  the  first  development  of  the  natural  rationality 
of  the  race,  as  exemplified  in  the  Greek  people. 
No  spiritual  rationality,  which  would  see  the  rela- 
tion of  correspondence  between  spiritual  and 
natural,  which  would  see  clearly  the  relation  be- 
tween the  Divine  and  the  Human  in  the  Lord, 
and  understand  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word, 
was  then  possible.  The  Christian  experience  of 
the  reception  of  good  life  from  the  Lord  was  re- 
ceived in  a  simple  childlike  way.  But  as  soon  as 
the  explanation  of  it  came  in  question,  it  was  the 


RATIONALITY  OF  THE  RACE.  13 

natural  reason  that  took  the  matter  up,  and  lost 
the  life  itself  in  discussion  of  its  nature. 

The  best  development  of  the  Christian  Church 
was  among  the  Asiatics  who  first  received  it  in  a 
simple,  childlike  way.*  But  its  largest  develop- 
ment was  among  Europeans,  whose  Aryan  stock 
is  that  of  the  rationality  of  the  race  —  in  its  latest 
branch,  the  Teutonic  of  northern  Europe,  if  we 
may  judge  from  him  who  was  the  Apostle  of  the 
New  Church,  giving  promise  of  a  development  of 
spiritual  rationality  at  some  future  time. 

In  the  meanwhile  this  natural  reason  is  very 
full  of  self-conceit  and  of  the  service  of  self;  and 
it  was  inevitable  that  the  treasures  of  Christianity 
committed  to  its  keeping  should  have  suffered, 
both  from  its  incapacity  to  understand  them,  and 
from  the  natural  self  to  which  this  natural  reason 
seems  to  belong. 

Now,  if  this  is  according  to  the  order  of  human 
nature,  if  the  Christian  experience  does  naturally 
first  come  in  the  days  of  youth,  when  the  natural 

*  Spiritual  Diary,  4676. 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


reason  is  active,  and  the  first  experience  rouses 
both  the  natural  reason  to  explain  it,  and  some- 
thing of  selfish  exultation  in  the  possession  of 
what  is  so  Divinely  precious,  must  there  not  have 
been  some  corresponding  development  in  the 
Lord  ?  In  His  early  youth  must  He  not  have 
exulted  both  in  His  splendid  intelligence  and  in 
the  Divine  saving  power,  the  power  to  heal  and  to 
protect  ?  Must  He  not  have  proved  through  hard 
experience  how  the  self  in  His  human  tended  to 
destroy  the  spiritual  truth  and  love,  from  the 
Divine,  in  an  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  captivity  ? 
and  then  have  set  Himself  to  build  anew  the 
Divine  kingdom  in  Himself  on  a  surer  basis  ? 

This  building  anew  for  the  fuller,  truer  recep- 
tion of  the  Divine,  is  perhaps  a  longer  process 
than  we  have  supposed.  We  have  thought  that 
it  was  only  necessary  for  the  light  to  come  into 
the  world  which  would  give  men  rational  freedom, 
and  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  would  be  established 
at  once.  But  our  story  says  that  from  the  carry- 
ing away  into  Babylon  unto  the  Christ  was 


{  UNIVERSITY   I 
V  OF          J 

^ 


SLOW  BUILDING  OF  THE  CHURCH.  i$ 

another  fourteen  generations  :  and  we  must  hold 
clearly  before  our  eyes  the  beautiful  possibilities 
of  the  Divine  Presence,  in  a  holy  city  with  streets 
of  gold,  through  which  runs  the  river  of  water  of 
life,  with  the  tree  of  life  growing  in  every  street 
by  the  banks  of  the  river,  and  with  abundant  light 
from  the  glory  of  God  and  the  Lamb,  to  help  us 
realize  how  very  far  away  is  the  attainment  of  the 
ideal.  We  read  that  during  the  captivity,  "  Evil- 
merodach,  king  of  Babylon,  lifted  up  the  head  of 
Jehoiachin,  king  of  Judah,  and  brought  him  forth 
out  of  prison,  and  spake  kindly  unto  him,"  which 
Swedenborg  interprets  as  "  the  beginning  of  the 
establishment  of  the  church."*  We  are  taught 
that  Cyrus,  the  conqueror  of  Babylon,  who  gave 
the  Jews  their  freedom  to  return,  represents  "  the 
Lord  as  to  His  Divine  Human,"f  Who  judged 
the  Babylon  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  gave  a  new 
freedom  to  men  on  earth.  In  the  exercise  of  their 
new  freedom  under  Cyrus,  the  Jews  began  to  re- 

*  Internal  Sense  of  Prophets  and  Psalms,  JEREMIAH  Hi.  31. 
t  Ibid.,  ISAIAH  xlv.  i. 


1 6  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

build  their  temple  on  the  ruins  of  its  former  self  ; 
which  means  the  rebuilding  of  the  church  "  with 
those  who  become  wise  from  the  Word."* 

The  freedom  to  do  this  was  to  be  from  the 
presence  of  the  Divine  Human  of  the  Lord, 
whereby  the  Babylon  had  already  been  judged ; 
but  many  generations  would  pass  before  the 
Christ  would  be  born,  and  the  Lord  would  really 
come  to  His  temple.f  In  the  meantime  we  are 
told  that  "the  new  church  to  be  established  by 
the  Lord  .  .  .  will  live  a  long  while  without  the 
truths  and  goods  of  the  church,  but  that  when  the 
Lord  comes  they  will  become  a  church  from  Him, 
and  will  acknowledge  Him  :":£  which  is  meant  by 
the  children  of  Israel  abiding  "  many  days  without 
a  king,  and  without  a  prince,  and  without  a  sacri- 
fice, and  without  an  image,  and  without  an  ephod, 
and  without  teraphim,"  and  afterward  returning 
and  seeking  the  Lord  their  God  and  David  their 
king. 

*  Internal  Sense  of  the  Prophets  and  Psalms,  HAGGAI  i.  12-15. 
|  Ibid.,  HAGGAI  ii.    \  Ibid.,  HOSEA  iii. 


A   TRUE  CHURCH  DELAYED. 


The  length  of  time  before  the  church  can  be 
prepared  to  receive  the  Lord  in  fulness,  is  like- 
wise indicated  in  Swedenborg's  explanation  of  the 
seven  kings  of  Babylon,  of  whom  "  five  are  fallen, 
and  one  is,  and  the  other  is  not  yet  come."  The 
seven  kings,  he  says,  are  the  truths  of  the  Word 
which  have  been  destroyed  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  "  except  this  one,  that  all  power  in  heaven 
and  in  earth  was  given  to  the  Lord  ;  and  except 
another  which  has  not  yet  come  into  question  — 
and  when  it  does  it  will  not  remain  —  which  is, 
that  the  Lord's  Human  is  Divine."  And  he  adds 
"  that  this  will  yet  come  in  question,  may  be  evi- 
dent from  the  fact  that  it  is  here  foretold  in  the 
Apocalypse."*  Nor  has  it  yet  come  openly  in 
question  ;  and  until  it  does,  the  rule  of  the  love  of 
self  in  that  great  body  of  the  church  will  not  come 
to  its  downfall. 

Our  present  interest  in  this  long  period  of 
preparation  of  the  church  for  the  Lord,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  this  is  meant  by  the  fourteen  generations 

*  Apocalypse  Revealed,  738. 


1 8  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

from  the  carrying  away  into  Babylon  unto  the 
Christ ;  for  it  will  be  remembered  that  it  was  the 
same  Jehoiachin  who  was  carried  away  from  Jeru- 
salem, to  whom  the  king  of  Babylon  afterward 
spoke  kindly  ;  and  the  second  in  the  line  from 
him  was  the  Zerubbabel  who  was  rebuilding  the 
temple.  The  process  which  requires  so  long  a 
period  is  a  complex  one,  involving  the  humbling 
of  the  natural  reason,  and  the  development  and 
training  of  the  spiritual  reason.  First  the  exulta- 
tion of  the  natural  reason  in  the  possession  of 
Divine  realities  is  to  be  wholly  subdued,  and  the 
lesson  thoroughly  learned  that  not  anything  which 
is  of  self,  or  which  appears  to  be  of  self,  has  sav- 
ing power,  but  only  the  Lord  alone.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  the  captivity  which  was  so  earnestly  in- 
sisted upon  by  Jeremiah.*  And  then  the  spiritual 
reason  is  slowly  developed,  which  is  capable  of 
discerning  the  Divine  nature  of  the  Lord,  and  of 
His  work  for  men,  of  distinguishing  clearly  be- 
tween what  has  been  from  Him  in  the  history  of 

*  Internal  Sense  of  Prophets  and  Psalms,  Jeremiah  xxxviii.,  xlii. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  AND   THE  FUTUKE  FAITH.      ^ 

the  church,  and  what  from  men,  and  which  returns 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Gospels  and  of  the  Apos- 
tolic Age,  with  earnest  desire  to  rebuild  the 
church  as  the  Lord  built  it — which  is  meant  by 
the  toilsome  rebuilding  of  the  house,  and  the  re- 
establishment  of  worship  therein.* 

And  presently  this  same  reason,  which  thus 
discerns  between  what  is  of  God  and  what  is  of 
men,  can  be  instructed  in  the  spiritual  sense  of 
the  Bible,  and  understand  the  glorification  of  the 
Lord's  Human,  and  be  prepared  to  follow  Him 
where  at  the  first  the  apostles  could  not  follow. 

Through  all  this  development  the  Lord  passed 
in  becoming  the  Word  made  flesh,  for  it  is  of  this 
that  the  Word  treats.  And  thus  also  He  became 
the  Son  of  Man,  and,  in  the  subjection  of  these 
human  powers  to  the  love  of  God,  the  Son  of  Man 
glorified. 

*  Possibly  the  senge  of  the  lack  of  conjunction  with  the  Lord 
during  this  period  is  meant  by  the  absence  of  the  ark  from  the 
rebuilded  temple;  and  the  continued  struggle  to  prevent  the 
natural  reason  from  claiming  and  perverting  spiritual  truth,  by 
the  wars  with  the  Greeks  which  filled  so  large  a  place  in  this 
period  of  the  history. 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


A  point  of  interest  in  this  genealogy  is  the 
mention  of  the  women  who  became  mothers  in  the 
series.  In  the  first  fourteen  we  have  mention  of 
Tamar  and  Rahab  and  Ruth ;  in  the  second,  of 
the  wife  of  Uriah;  and  in  the  third,  of  Mary. 
Swedenborg  tells  us  but  little  of  their  representa- 
tion ;  but  that  little  is  wholly  good.  "  The  Jewish 
Church  is  described  by  Judah,  and  the  genuine 
church  by  Tamar,"  he  says*;  and  again,  "the 
internal  of  the  church  here  is  Tamar,  and  the  ex- 
ternal is  Judah.  "f  And  if  Judah  represents  here 
the  doctrine  from  the  Word  in  regard  to  the 
saving  love  of  God,  Tamar,  whose  name  means  a 
palm  tree,  must  represent  a  genuine  affection  for 
such  doctrine,  not  merely  as  knowledge,  nor  to 
gratify  selfish  pride,  but  for  the  sake  of  life. 

Of  Rahab  we  know  that  she  was  the  woman  of 
Jericho  who  protected  Joshua's  spies ;  whose 
window  was  marked  by  a  scarlet  thread ;  and  who, 
with  her  family,  alone  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jericho 
was  saved,  and  incorporated  in  Israel. 

*  Arcana  Coelestia,  4811.      t  Ibid.>  4831   end. 


THE   WOMEN  OF  THE  SERIES.  2 1 

If  Jericho,  the  city  of  palm-trees,  on  the  borders 
of  the  Jordan,  stands  for  a  false  security  in  the 
teaching  of  false  doctrines  of  life,  Rahab,  of  good 
heart  although  a  harlot,  represents  a  good  affec- 
tion which  has  been  perverted  by  false  teaching, 
but  desires  to  be  instructed  in  the  truth  and  saved 
by  the  Lord.  She  is  an  affection  which  in  later 
childhood  is  willing  to  repent,  and  cooperate  in 
establishing  a  good  orderly  life. 

Ruth,  whose  name  perhaps  means  a  friend,  was 
a  Moabitess,  innocent  and  good  according  to  the 
ways  of  the  time.  And  as  Moab  represents  a 
love  for  what  is  naturally  good  and  pleasant,  in 
seeking  an  alliance  in  Israel,  she  represents  such 
Gentile  love  desiring  to  be  instructed  in  what  is 
genuinely  good. 

Bathsheba  was  the  wife  of  Uriah  the  Hittite. 
Probably  she  too  was  a  Hittite.  At  any  rate  she 
represented  affection  for  such  truth  as  is  meant 
by  him  whose  name  was  "the  Light  of  Jah."  The 
Hittites  were  remains  of  the  Most  Ancient 
Church*  and  represent  the  remains  of  childhood's 

*  Arcana  Ccelestia,  4447.     See  also  n.  2913,  2940. 


22  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

innocent  love  and  thought.  Therefore  Bathsheba 
represents  affection  for  the  light  of  childhood's 
thought,  uniting  itself  now  with  rational  thought 
concerning  the  Divine  with  men. 

And  Mary,  whose  name  means  bitterness,  be- 
trothed to  Joseph,  the  last  representative  of  the 
coming  Divine,  stands  for  the  despairing  desire 
for  the  opening  of  the  representatives  to  the 
Divine  Itself  —  the  desire  for  the  Divine  truth 
instead  of  mere  representatives  of  it. 

The  whole  series  is  the  series  of  affections  for 
truth  for  the  sake  of  life,  and  in  the  life,  by  which 
the  successive  developments  of  acquisition  of 
knowledge,  of  obedience,  of  enjoyment,  of  rational 
enlightenment,  of  the  truth  of  God  are  attained. 
They  are  the  series  of  affections  by  which  the 
Son  of  Man  attains  His  full  development. 


THE  GENEALOGY  IN  LUKE. 


'TPHE  building  the  mind  into  forms  of  truth,  by 
learning  it,  understanding  it,  and  living  it,  is 
called  reformation.  The  descent  of  love  from  God 
into  the  will,  where  it  is  received  as  love  for  good 
life,  is  regeneration.  To  be  built  into  forms  of 
truth  is  to  become  the  Son  of  Man.  To  receive 
the  love  of  God  into  the  heart  and  life  is  to  be- 
come the  Son  of  God.  Reformation  precedes, 
and  regeneration  follows  as  man  overcomes  evil 
in  temptations.  Therefore  it  is  said  in  Luke  that 
after  Jesus  was  baptized,  "  the  heaven  was  opened, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  descended  in  a  bodily  shape 
like  a  dove  upon  Him,  and  a  voice  came  from 
heaven,  which  said,  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son  ;  in 
Thee  I  am  well  pleased."  And  then  immediately 
follows  the  genealogy  of  Jesus  the  Son  of  God. 
The  genealogy  as  given  in  Matthew  begins  with 

23 


24  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

Abraham  and  leads  up  to  the  birth  of  Jesus  — 
tracing  the  developments  of  knowledge  and  obe- 
dience, of  understanding  and  conflict,  of  vastation 
of  the  self-intelligence  and  self-love,  till  the  love 
of  God  could  be  manifested  through  Him  who  was 
the  perfect  Son  of  Man. 

The  genealogy  of  Luke  begins  with  Jesus  as 
He  enters  upon  His  Divine  ministry  at  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  and  traces  His  return  through 
all  the  stages  of  His  inheritance  up  to  God.  For 
it  is  the  law  of  regeneration  that  when  one  has 
attained  the  full  development  of  his  manhood,  he 
must  return  and  become  again  a  little  child.  In 
the  return  the  later  states  come  up  first,  and  suc- 
cessively those  which  are  earlier.  And  it  is  not 
now  the  truth  or  the  intelligence  of  the  states  that 
he  cares  for,  but  the  love  and  the  trustfulness. 

First  he  revises  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  his 
manhood,  chastens  its  pride,  thoroughly  humbles 
its  self-love,  strengthens  its  acknowledgment  that 
none  is  good  but  God,  and  its  contentment  in 
doing  day  by  day  the  will  of  God.  Then  he 


THE  RETURN  TO  CHILDHOOD. 


comes  to  the  ideals  of  youth,  whose  foolish  exulta- 
tions and  ambitions  he  humbles  severely,  substi- 
tuting for  its  love  of  clear,  bright  thoughts  the 
desire  to  understand  the  Lord's  teaching  of  what 
is  wholly  wise  and  helpful.  And  so  he  comes 
back  to  the  open-hearted  innocence  and  trust  of 
childhood's  obedience,  which  he  renews  and  makes 
unhesitating ;  and  of  childhood's  love  of  knowing 
what  is  of  God  and  heaven,  which  he  deepens  by 
the  contrast  with  his  experience  of  evil. 

Perhaps  it  is  because  of  the  difference  in  the 
things  regarded,  the  rejection  of  so  much  that  is 
of  mere  intellect,  and  the  strengthening  of  the 
less  observed  states  of  affection,  that  the  line  of 
Luke  passes  by  the  kings,  and  follows,  or  appears 
to  follow,  the  line  of  personal  descent ;  taking  up 
again  the  same  line  with  Matthew  when  they 
reach  David,  who  represents  the  youthful  ideal  of 
the  rule  of  the  Divine  in  the  Human,  and  the 
period  of  the  Judges,  where  the  child's  obedience 
needs  only  to  be  strengthened  and  perfected. 

But  the  line  of  Luke  does  not  stop  with  Abra- 


26  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

ham,  where  that  of  Matthew  began,  but  goes  back 
through  the  succession  of  churches  before  the 
time  of  Abraham,  as  described  in  the  eleventh 
and  the  fifth  chapters  of  Genesis,  to  Seth  and 
Adam,  and  to  God.  For  before  the  awakening  of 
the  childhood's  love  of  knowing,  there  are  some 
years  of  innocent  joys  in  the  opening  of  the 
senses,  and  in  happy  trustful  love,  of  which  there 
is  little  or  no  memory.  And  back  of  this  lie  the 
human  possibilities  formed  in  the  embryo  by  lov- 
ing influences  from  God  and  heaven,  then  immedi- 
ately present,  by  virtue  of  which  God  and  heaven 
can  ever  be  present  in  the  interiors  of  the  soul, 
however  the  exteriors  may  be  perverted. 

Nearly  the  same  was  true  with  the  Lord. 
Before  His  coming  into  the  world,  the  Divine  was 
revealed  to  men  through  the  heavens  which  were 
filled  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  which  an  angel  of  the  Lord  spake  with 
men,  or  did  mighty  works  of  God.  This  Divine 
of  the  Lord  in  the  heavens,  Swedenborg  tells  us, 
was  the  Divine  Human  before  the  Incarnation. 


THROUGH  THE  HEAVENS  FROM  GOD. 


27 


And  he  adds  that  the  human  assumed  in  the  world 
was  superinduced  upon  this  in  Him  Who  was 
born  into  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  there  were 
in  His  human  spirit  planes  receptive  of  the 
Divine,  answering  to  the  planes  of  the  heavens, 
formed  by  the  influence  of  the  Divine  through  the 
heavens  as  full  as  could  be  borne.  And  in  the 
inmost  plane,  where  in  all  other  men  is  the  inmost 
finite  receptacle  of  the  life  of  God,  in  Him  was 
God  Jehovah  Himself  unlimited.  Now  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  the  heavens  which  were  the 
mediums  of  the  Divine  influence  in  His  spirit, 
were  from  the  churches  that  had  existed  upon  the 
earth,  whose  quality  is  described  in  the  geneal- 
ogies of  Genesis.  Therefore  the  enumeration  of 
these  is  really  a  description  of  the  Divine  influ- 
ences embodied  in  the  heavens,  by  which  the  in- 
terior planes  of  His  spirit  were  formed  —  those 
between  Abraham  and  Noah  representing  the 
happy  states  of  sense  development,  when  every 
natural  impression  is  filled  with  something  of  life 
from  heaven  ;  and  those  before  the  flood  represent- 


28  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

ing  the  forms  impressed  upon  the  embryo  by  the 
immediate  presence  of  God  and  heaven. 

No  man  upon  the  earth  ever  knows  what  is 
stored  up  in  his  soul,  or  the  deep  possibilities  of  it. 
After  the  death  of  the  body,  when  the  spirit  is 
prepared  for  heaven,  new  depths  of  consciousness 
are  opened  in  it,  answering  to  the  depths  which 
were  formed  in  the  embryo  by  the  influence  of  the 
heavens,  of  which  nothing  was  known  during  the 
life  upon  earth.  But  in  the  Lord,  in  the  regener- 
ation of  His  human  nature,  all  that  entered  into  it 
became  sensible  to  Him,  even  to  the  inmosts  of 
the  human  soul,  where  the  Divine  Life  dwelt. 
"  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time,"  He  said ; 
"  the  only  begotten  Son  Who  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  He  hath  declared  Him."  "Not  that 
any  man  hath  seen  the  Father,  save  He  that  is  of 
God;  He  hath  seen  the  Father." 

In  the  great  story  of  human  life  which  we  call 
the  Bible,  the  first  truly  historical  characters,  the 
first  remembered  figures>  are  those  of  Abraham 
and  his  immediate  ancestors.  The  long  list  of 


THROUGH  THE  HEAVENS  TO  GOD. 


29 


names  back  of  these  stand  not  for  persons,  but 
for  religions,  or  states  of  the  church,  the  descrip- 
tion of  which  has  come  down  in  this  form  from 
prehistoric  antiquity.  They  stand  for  the  unre- 
membered  childhood  of  the  race,  for  the  most  part 
innocent,  open  to  the  Lord  and  heaven,  yet,  be- 
cause it  is  subject  to  the  will  of  man,  having 
possible  tendencies  to  violent  evils.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  men  of  that  childhood  in  its  good  states, 
constitute  the  heavens  nearest  the  Lord ;  and 
from  them  in  part  come  the  influences  which 
mould  the  unconscious  child's  soul  into  forms  of 
heaven,  which  can  afterward  rise  into  heaven  and 
live  the  life  of  heaven.  And  therefore  the  series 
of  names  which  describes  the  descent  of  the 
churches,  is  a  true  description  of  the  formation  of 
the  soul  with  its  possibilities  of  life,  even  from 
God.  And  these  in  the  Lord's  human  life  were 
all  successively  opened  to  Him  even  to  the 
inmost. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the   Lord's  mind,  re- 
turning through  the  stores    successively  laid   up 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


from  earliest  infancy  to  manhood,  should  see  them 
in  a  different  light  from  that  in  which  they  ap- 
peared at  the  first.  It  is  not  now  the  truth  that 
is  of  interest,  but  the  good  ;  not  the  knowledge 
and  the  intelligence,  but  the  love  of  use,  of  obedi- 
ence, of  innocent  trust.  Back  through  all  the 
states  of  life  He  passed,  bringing  every  one  to  the 
perfect  form  of  the  love  of  God.  The  powers  of 
manhood  became  powers  of  protecting,  saving,  and 
blessing  from  the  Father's  love,  with  absolutely  no 
reflection  upon  self.  The  ideals  of  life  became  a 
joy  in  the  beauty  of  love.  The  willingness  to 
obey  the  truth  became  a  boundless  love  for  the 
ways  in  which  the  Father's  love  might  dwell. 
The  love  of  knowing  of  God  and  heaven,  was  win- 
nowed of  every  trace  of  pride  of  knowledge,  and 
became  a  pure  love  of  God  Himself.  The  child's 
delight  in  sense  impressions  became  a  joy  in 
every  thing  that  expressed  and  revealed  the 
Father's  love.  And  so  away  through  depths  of 
inner  consciousness  that  we  cannot  follow,  at 
length  the  very  desire  for  life  independent  of  the 


THE  DIVINE  HUMAN. 


Father  was  put  off ;  the  self -life  was  absolutely 
laid  down ;  there  was  no  life  in  the  Human  but 
the  Father's  love  ;  the  Human  from  inmost  to 
outmost  became  the  Love  of  God  perfectly 
brought  forth,  working  Divinely  in  human  ways 
to  unite  Itself  with  men,  and  men  with  Itself.* 

*  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  the  common  explanation,  that  the 
marked  differences  in  the  lines  from  Solomon  to  Shealtiel  arise 
from  tracing  the  line,  in  the  one  case  officially  through  the 
Kings  to  the  childless  Jechoniah,  and  in  the  other  personally 
through  Nathan  the  brother  of  Solomon  to  Shealtiel  who  suc- 
ceeded Jechoniah  ;  and  the  lesser  differences  in  the  remainder  of 
the  line  seem  to  be  also  reasonably  explained.  The  fact  that  the 
generations  from  the  carrying  into  Babylon  to  Christ  as  given  in 
Matthew  number  only  thirteen,  and  the  other  matter  of  the  in- 
sertion of  a  Cainan  or  Kenan  in  Luke  between  Arpachshad  and 
Shelah,  which  does  not  appear  in  Genesis,  will  probably  be  ex- 
plained when  more  perfect  copies  of  the  text  are  found.  It  is 
idle  to  attempt  to  interpret,  before  we  are  sure  of  our  basis. 


THE    COMING    OF    THE    LORD    IN    THE 
WORD. 


nr^HE  Gospel  story  in  its  literal  sense  is  the 
story  of  the  real  coming  of  God  to  men, 
in  the  early  development  of  the  rationality  of  the 
race.* 

The  natural  sense  of  the  Gospels  relates  to  the 
natural  reception  of  the  Divine  in  the  lives  of 
men,  which  was  the  essence  and  substance  of  the 
Christian  Church,  and  the  spring  of  life  of  a  new 
Christian  civilization. 

On  the  same  plane  also  is  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  now,  into  the  experience  of  men,  normally  in 
their  early  youth,  as  a  power  to  restrain  evil,  and 
to  inspire  new  affections  for  good  life. 

*  This  period  was  represented  by  the  Kings,  especially  by 
David.  Hence  the  Lord  was  called  the  Son  of  David.  The 
Kings  themselves  belonged  to  the  period  of  the  first  natural 
rationality,  and  did  not  receive  any  but  natural  ideals.  But  they 
represented  the  reception  of  spiritual  ideals  in  the  natural,  which 
the  Lord  afterward  brought  to  pass. 


RECEIVED  BY  THE  HEART. 


33 


But  this  first  coming  of  the  Lord  is  itself  repre- 
sentative of  His  second  coming  to  a  more  ad- 
vanced state  of  rational  development  both  of  the 
race  and  of  the  individual  —  the  state  in  which 
the  pride  of  intelligence  and  the  appropriation  to 
self  of  the  holy  things  of  Christian  worship  and 
life  are  ready  for  judgment,  that  the  pure  love  of 
the  Lord  may  be  received  and  do  its  work ;  while 
man  humbly  and  gratefully  acknowledges  it  as  the 
Lord's,  fearing  and  dreading  any  appropriation  to 
self. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  genealogy  has  been 
interpreted,  as  leading  up  to  Joseph,  who  stands 
for  the  good  of  life  which  is  capable  of  being  en- 
lightened and  rationally  understanding  the  Divine 
of  the  Lord  in  the  Word,  and  is  the  husband  of 
Mary  —  the  affection  for  the  Divine  truth  which 
is  the  Lord  Himself  —  the  truth  of  His  own  life. 

The  lesson  of  the  conception  is  that  the  reality 

of  the    Lord's  presence  in  the  Word  is  not  first 

CHAPTER      received  by  the  rational  understanding, 

but  the  goodness  of  it  appeals  directly 


34 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


to  the  affection  for  truth,  and  it  is  received  and 
cherished  as  true  before  it  is  rationally  understood. 

And  as  this  is  not  what  the  understanding 
would  expect,  it  doubts  the  legitimacy  of  it ;  but 
can  be  instructed  that  it  is  really  of  the  Lord,  and 
as  the  Lord  should  come;  and  then  it  unites  with 
the  affection  for  it  in  caring  for  and  protecting  it. 
Mary  was  afterward  the  wife  of  Joseph,  because 
the  understanding  when  enlightened  does  interpret 
the  truth  of  the  Lord's  life  to  the  affection  for  it, 
though  the  affection  has  been  first  to  recognize  it. 

This  coming  of  the  Lord  is  indeed  in  the  spiri- 
tual sense  of  the  Word ;  but  a  knowledge  of  the 
spiritual  sense  is  not  the  coming  of  the  Lord  — for 
this  can  be  taught  from  books,  and  committed  to 
memory ;  neither  is  the  rational  understanding  of 
it,  the  coming  of  the  Lord  —  for  this  may  be  had 
by  mental  training  and  combined  with  much  pride 
of  intelligence.  The  Lord  may  indeed  be  present 
in  such  knowledge,  and  introduced  by  such  under- 
standing ;  but  He  is  received  by  the  heart,  when 
He  is  recognized  and  loved  as  the  Divine  Love 


THE  FIRST  AND  THE  SECOND  COMING. 


35 


uniting  Itself  with  men  in  a  good  life  according  to 
the  Commandments. 

He  was  received  in  this  way  naturally  in  His 
first  coming,  and  now  also  both  naturally  and 
spiritually  in  His  second  coming.  And  the  differ- 
ence is  that  to  the  life  of  benevolence  and  useful- 
ness from  His  Spirit  as  received  at  first,  is  added 
in  maturer  regenerate  states,  the  rational  under- 
standing of  the  glorification  of  the  Lord's  Human, 
and  the  regeneration  of  men  by  following  in  His 
footsteps  —  both  of  which  are  fully  taught  in  the 
spiritual  sense  of  the  Word.  There  is  also  added 
the  dread  born  of  long  and  hard  experience,  of  the 
pride  of  holiness  and  the  pride  of  understanding* 
—  the  shunning  of  which  will  forever  preserve  the 
sense  of  the  new  life  as  the  Lord's,  given  of  the 


*  A  new  development  of  rationality  has  come  to  the  race,  es- 
pecially in  the  growth  of  the  European  peoples,  the  youthful 
pride  in  which  has  brought  the  Church  to  a  sterile  end  of  intel- 
lect or  faith  alone.  The  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  the  Lord,  not 
begotten  of  man  (!SAIAH  vii.  14),  promises  new  life  from  God 
when  this  intellect  shall  be  judged.  It  is  this  intellect  which 
first  seizes  upon  the  new  truth,  and  which  must  be  humbled  be- 
fore the  Lord  can  reign  in  His  Church. 


36  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

Divine  Mercy  to  men  who  are  in  themselves  only 
vile  and  evil. 

In  Bethlehem,  the  House  of  Bread,  the  Lord 
was  born,  because  He  was  the  living  Bread  by 
CHAPTER  which  heavenly  spirits  are  nourished. 
In  the  land  of  Judah  it  was,  because 
this  represents  the  plane  of  the  mind  in  which  the 
love  of  God  should  be  known.  "  In  the  days  of 
Herod  the  king,"  means  when  the  pride  of  self-in- 
telligence ruled  in  the  church.  For  Herod  was  an 
Edomite,  and  in  the  evil  sense  Edom  means 
"  pride  in  one's  own  intelligence,  and  falsity  from 
it,  destroying  the  church."* 

The  wise  men  of  the  east  were  a  remnant  of 
ancient  churches,  having  the  remains  of  ancient 
wisdom ;  and  they  represent  the  surviving  wisdom 
of  childhood's  innocence  and  trustfulness.  This 
recognizes  the  Lord  as  King  of  the  church,  and 
offers  the  acknowledgment  that  His  human  pres- 
ence in  the  heart  is  itself  life  from  the  love  of 
God,  the  delight  of  spiritual  intelligence,  and  the 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  410. 


THE  THREE  JOSEPHS.  37 

healing  and  protection  of  natural  truth  —  repre- 
sented by  the  gold,  the  frankincense,  and  the 
myrrh,  presented  by  the  wise  men. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  young  life  was 
carried  to  Egypt,  and  there  protected  by  Joseph 
—  as  once  before,  under  the  Divine  Providence,  a 
Joseph  went  down  into  Egypt  to  save  life,  and  to 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  new  nation  and  a  new 
church.  To  two  different  periods  the  two  Josephs 
belong  —  the  one  to  the  period  of  childhood's  love 
of  knowing,  and  the  other  to  the  maturer  love  of 
understanding.  "The  celestial  of  the  spiritual" 
is  the  technical  formula  by  which  Swedenborg 
describes  the  quality  represented  by  Joseph.  And 
by  this  he  means  the  love  which  is  the  root  of 
faith  in  the  Lord,  and  is  capable  of  being  in- 
structed in  Divine  things. 

The  Joseph  of  the  early  days  represents  the 
child's  love  for  the  Divine  in  the  Word  and  in  the 
story  of  the  Lord's  life,  which  places  the  knowl- 
edge of  this  above  all  other  knowledge.  The 
Joseph  of  the  later  days  represents  the  young 


38  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

man's  love  for  that  which  is  of  God,  which  sees 
the  difference  between  what  is  of  God  and  what  is 
of  men,  and  rationally  acknowledges  the  Divine  in 
the  Lord.  This  it  is  that  is  capable  of  being  in- 
structed in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word. 

And  besides  these  there  was  another  Joseph, 
high  in  the  councils  of  the  Jews,  who,  when  the 
Lord  was  crucified  by  the  urgent  insistence  of  the 
Jews,  courageously  begged  for  the  body,  and  with 
all  possible  honor  laid  it  in  his  own  new  tomb. 
And  he  stands  for  the  love  for  the  Lord  which 
when  the  pride  of  spiritual  intelligence  and  of 
holiness,  or  elation  in  the  possession  of  spiritual 
truth,  rejects  the  Divine  life  of  love  and  service, 
courageously  defies  it,  and  asks  for  itself  no  hope 
of  heaven  but  in  that  love  from  the  Lord  alone. 

The  Egypt  to  which  the  young  child  was  car- 
ried, was  at  that  time  the  land  of  learning.  There 
were  the  great  libraries  of  the  world  and  the 
schools  of  learning.  It  was  the  depository  of  the 
knowledge  of  representative  worship  of  all  the  old 
world.  Into  this  atmosphere  of  study  and  learn- 


THE  STATE  OF  INSTRUCTION. 


39 


ing  the  Lord  was  taken,  probably  at  the  time 
when  His  own  love  of  knowing  began  to  be 
awakened ;  and  we  are  not  going  beyond  the  evi- 
dent meaning  if  we  think  of  His  mind  as  stored 
there  with  representative  forms  of  every  kind,  and 
having  some  intuition  of  what  they  meant.  Just 
at  what  age  this  took  place  is  not  clear.  Herod 
slew  all  the  children  that  were  in  Bethlehem,  from 
two  years  old  and  under  —  or,  as  some  understand, 
from  the  second  year  —  according  to  the  time 
that  he  had  diligently  inquired  of  the  wise  men. 
We  may  infer  that  He  was  not  over  two  years  old. 
Even  this  is  young  for  the  love  of  knowledge  to 
awaken ;  but  we  know  that  His  states  did  progress 
much  more  rapidly  than  those  of  other  men. 

The  significance  of  this  as  regards  the  second 
coming  of  the  Lord,  is  that  after  the  first  recogni- 
tion of  the  Divine  in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the 
Word,  must  follow  a  state  of  instruction  in  the 
representatives  by  which  the  Word  is  written. 

Herod's  slaying  all  the  boys  in  Bethlehem  from 
two  years  old  and  under,  represents  the  extinction 


4o  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

of  all  genuine  truth  of  the  Divine  presence  with 
men,  by  the  pride  of  intelligence  —  the  two  years 
meaning  the  sense  of  the  love  of  the  Lord  in  the 
truth.  Rachel  is  affection  for  genuine  spiritual 
truth  from  the  Word,  which  mourns  when  the 
truth  is  lost. 

In  Nazareth,  which  seems  to  mean  Seclusion, 
the  next  long  period  of  the  Lord's  life  was  passed. 
It  was  the  period  in  which  He  was  learning  to  live 
the  Divine  life  according  to  the  truth  of  the  Word. 
He  did  not  come  forth  until  the  natural  self  had 
so  far  given  place  to  the  Divine,  that  whatever  He 
did  and  said  was  from  the  love  of  the  Father  for 
saving  men,  and  was  a  revelation  of  that  love. 
And  this  represents  the  long  period  of  instruction 
in  spiritual  truth,  which  is  necessary  to  introduce 
the  spiritual  life. 

His    first    appearance    was    at    the    baptism    of 

John ;  where,  by  submitting  to  be  baptized,  He 

CHAPTER      testified  to  the  cleansing  of  the  natural 

life  by  the  truth  of  the  Word.     And 

where  also  the  dove  descending  and  lighting  upon 


THE  TEMPTATIONS. 


Him  testified  to  the  reception  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
in  the  Human,  according  to  its  purification.  The 
voice  from  heaven  testified  to  the  Divine  satisfac- 
tion in  the  human  work  among  men. 

The  story  of  the  three  temptations  following,  is 

a  representative  account  of  the  conflicts  between 

CHAPTER      tne  ev^  influx  received  by  the  natural 

self,  and  the  Divine  Spirit,  interpreted 

by  the  Word. 

The  first  is  the  temptation  of  the  barren  re- 
formatory state,  when  the  understanding  leads,  to 
be  content  with  truths  alone,  and  the  ascetic 
power  of  resistance  ;  ceasing  the  effort  to  sow  the 
Divine  seed  and  reap  the  harvest  of  love  and 
good. 

The  second  temptation  —  in  Matthew,  to  cast 
Himself  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple  — 
is  the  temptation  of  weak  human  nature  to  de- 
mand that  the  Divine  should  give  the  good  of  re- 
•  generate  holy  states  without  doing  its  part  in  lay- 
ing down  the  self-life.  It  is  the  temptation  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  :  "  If  it  be  possible,  let  this 


42  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

cup  pass  from  Me ;  nevertheless,  not  My  will  but 
Thine  be  done."  Of  this  also  He  said :  "  Thinkest 
thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to  My  Father,  and 
He  shall  presently  give  Me  more  than  twelve 
legions  of  angels  ?  But  how  then  shall  the  Scrip- 
tures be  fulfilled,  that. thus  it  must  be  ?" 

The  third,  in  the  offer  of  all  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world  and  the  glory  of  them,  is  the  temptation 
to  use  His  power  for  the  exaltation  of  self,  and 
not  for  the  Divine  work  of  subduing  self.  It  is 
illustrated  by  the  turbulence  of  the  sea  when  the 
multitude,  excited  by  the  miracle  of  the  loaves, 
would  have  made  Him  a  King.  And  He  came 
quietly  walking  upon  the  sea  to  represent  the  vic- 
tory in  such  temptation. 

They  are  classes  of  temptations  endured  not 
once  for  all,  but  throughout  the  regenerating  life. 
The  desire  to  be  content  with  truth  is  distinctly- 
youthful,  but  is  not  wholly  overcome  until  good 
has  absolute  rule.  The  desire  to  be  borne  up  in 
lofty  states,  without  the  labor  of  temptations,  also 
begins  early.  Perhaps  we  have  some  expression 


PROTECTION  BY  THE  WORD.  43 

of  it  in  the  attempt  to  do  the  Father's  work  in  the 
temple  at  the  age  of  twelve  ;  when,  nevertheless, 
whatever  disappointment  He  may  have  felt,  He 
went  back  to  Nazareth  with  Mary  and  Joseph,  and 
was  subject  unto  them.  And  so  again,  the  desire 
for  natural  position  and  power  does  not  first  show 
itself  late  in  life,  though  it  may  be  late  in  wholly 
giving  way.* 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  all  the  answers  of  the 
Lord  are  from  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  though 
with  reference  to  what  has  been  described  or  said 
in  Exodus  ;  f  for  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  con- 
tains the  Law  as  it  appears  at  the  close  of  the 
wilderness  journey  when  the  rule  of  love  is  at 
hand. 

The  ministry  of  angels  when  the  devil  left  Him, 

*  Possibly  the  reversing  the  order  of  the  second  and  third  in 
Luke  means  that  Matthew's  third  was  the  more  external  and 
easier  to  overcome —  Matthew,  as  in  the  Genealogies,  giving  the 
order  of  development  of  the  natural  human,  and  Luke  that  of 
the  Divine  development.  Both  call  the  tempter,  "  Satan,"  in 
answer  to  the  promise  of  the  glory  of  the  world  —  implying  that 
it  was  a  false  illusion,  more  external  than  the  other. 

t  DEUTERONOMY  viii.  3;  vi.  13  (x.  20) ;  vi.  16.  EXODUS  xvi.; 
xvii.  I  ;  xxxiv.  14. 


44 


MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 


is  the  reception  of  Divine  things  as  evils  are  re- 
moved. 

Thus  began  the  Lord's  public  ministry,  when 
He  was  about  thirty  years  of  age,  and  perhaps  in 
early  February.  For  if  we  allow  forty  days  for 
the  temptations,  then  the  journey  to  Cana  and 
the  sojourn  of  "  not  many  days "  at  Capernaum 
will  bring  us  near  the  end  of  March,  when  "  the 
Jews*  Passover  was  at  hand/'  That  Passover,  with 
the  first  cleansing  of  the  temple  and  the  conver- 
sation with  Nicodemus,  was  the  beginning  of  the 
Judean  ministry.  It  lasted  apparently  until  Jan- 
uary ;  for  when  He  left  Judea  and  passed  through 
Samaria,  on  the  way  to  Galilee,  it  lacked  only  four 
months  of  harvest  time.  It  had  been  a  season  of 
diligent  teaching,  the  results  of  which,  both 
friendly  and  unfriendly,  were  to  appear  later. 

A  few  weeks  follow  of  which  no  account  is 
given,  and  then  we  hear  again  of  a  feast  of  the 
Jews,*  and  of  another  visit  to  Jerusalem,  with  more 

*  JOHN  v. 


IMPRISONMENT  OF  JOHN,  45 

healing,  and  more  preaching  of  the  presence  of  the 
Heavenly  Father  in  Him,  which  was  the  burden 
of  the  Judean  message.  But  of  all  this,  from  the 
time  of  the  temptations,  Matthew  tells  us  nothing. 
His  mission  is  to  tell  of  the  giving  of  the  Chris- 
tian Law,  and  the  application  of  the  law  to  the 
plane  of  natural  life,  which  is  represented  by 
Galilee.  He  takes  up  the  story  "  When  Jesus  had 
heard  that  John  was  cast  into  prison,"  that  is,  in 
the  second  spring  of  His  ministry,  while  still  in 
Judea. 

Then  the  Lord  left  Judea,  and  departed  into 
Galilee.  For  the  imprisonment  of  John  by  Herod 
meant  that  lustfulness  so  far  controlled  the  world 
that  it  could  no  longer  be  openly  taught  that 
adultery  was  a  sin  against  God.  The  moral  law 
was  no  longer  taught  as  the  law  of  God  ;  though, 
from  regard  for  appearances,  it  was  preserved,  and 
not  yet  wholly  rejected,  that  the  shameless  love  of 
evil  might  have  full  sway  —  as  happened  later, 
when  Herod  beheaded  John  for  Salome's  sake. 

The  basis  for  the  presence  of  God  in  the  lives 


46  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

of  men  was  departing.  And  yet  this  must  always 
be  present,  that  man  may  be  saved.  Therefore 
the  Lord  Himself  came  into  that  Galilee  which 
represents  the  plane  of  natural  conduct,  and  Him- 
self took  up  the  teaching  of  the  Divine  presence 
in  a  life,  as  to  thought  and  affection  as  well  as  in 
form,  according  to  the  Ten  Commandments. 

In  Nazareth  He  had  attained  that  union  of  the 
Divine  with  the  truth  of  life,  from  which  He  was 
to  teach.  Nazareth  was  in  the  tribe  of  Zebulon, 
which  means  such  uniting  together.  But  with 
the  people  of  Nazareth  there  had  been  a  different 
uniting  of  the  love  of  evil  with  their  false  interpre- 
tations of  the  Scriptures.  Not  there  could  His 
teaching  be  received.  So,  "  leaving  Nazareth,  He 
came  and  dwelt  in  Capernaum,  which  is  upon  the 
sea  coast,  in  the  borders  of  Zebulon,"  but  in  the 
domain  of  Naphtali.  The  life  in  Nazareth  had 
been  on  the  plane  of  thought  and  intent  of  good 
life.  The  life  in  Capernaum  was  upon  the  plane 
of  act,  and  of  conflict  with  evil.  It  was  appropri- 
ate that  this  should  be  in  Naphtali,  for  Naphtali 


THE  MINISTRY  IN  GALILEE. 


47 


means  strugglings,  or,  spiritually,  temptations. 
Capernaum  perhaps  means  literally,  the  Village  of 
Consolations — a  good  name  for  His  home  in  the 
time  of  strugglings. 

Here  by  the  borders  of  the  sea,  the  confines  of 
spiritual  life  in  natural,  the  people  which  now  had 
no  idea  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the  life  of  men, 
"  saw  great  light,  and  to  them  which  sat  in  the 
region  and  shadow  of  death,  light  is  sprung  up." 

A  few  disciples  who  had  been  previously  drawn 
to  Him  at  the  Baptism  of  John  by  the  Jordan 
were  now  gathered  together ;  and  with  them, 
training  them  to  the  Divine  service,  He  "went 
about  all  Galilee,  teaching  in  their  synagogues,  and 
preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  and  healing 
all  manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease 
among  the  people." 

Thus  Matthew  summarizes  the  opening  of  the 
ministry  in  Galilee.  Certain  typical  instances  of 
healing,  typical  of  the  effect  of  His  teaching,  and 
of  His  presence  with  men,  are  related  in  chrono- 
logical order  by  Mark  and  Luke.  But  Matthew 


48  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

gathers  first  a  summary  of  the  teaching,  and  then 
exhibits  the  types  of  the  effect  of  it. 

This  summary  of  the  Lord's  teaching  of  the 
Divine  law  of  life,  we  know  as  the  Sermon  on  the 
CHAPTER  Mount.  It  begins  with  pronouncing 
blessings  upon  the  poor  in  spirit,  the 
mourning,  the  meek,  the  hungering  and  thirsting, 
and  all  who  are  in  heart  in  the  ways  of  life  taught 
by  the  Ten  Commandments.  John  had  taught 
the  Commandments  as  the  necessary  preparation 
for  the  coming  of  the  Lord.  Such  teaching  had 
been  forbidden  and  restrained.  And  now  the 
Lord  came  teaching  of  the  joy  of  the  Divine  love 
in  such  ways  of  life,  as  the  ways  of  the  life  of  God 
on  earth.  From  the  power  of  that  love  in  Him- 
self He  taught,  and  restored  forever  the  moral  law 
as  the  Divine  law  of  human  life  —  established  for- 
ever by  His  own  love  for  it. 

The  parallel  between  the  Blessings  and  the 
Commandments  is  familiar,  and  will  probably  be 
plain  to  one  who  will  study  the  interpretation  of 
the  two  in  the  Book  of  Rites  arid  Sacraments  for 


THE  CHRISTIAN  LA  W.  49 


the  New  Church.  The  remainder  of  the  fifth 
chapter  of  Matthew  contains  upon  the  face  of  it  an 
expansion  of  the  same  principles,  offering  many 
parallels  to  the  "  Book  of  the  Covenant "  in 
Deuteronomy,  which  is  likewise  an  expansion  of 
the  Commandments  in  a  somewhat  varied  order. 

The  sixth  chapter  contains  teaching  of  another 
kind.  Luke  places  this  teaching  in  the  third,  the 
CHAPTER  last>  winter  of  the  Lord's  ministry,  after 

VL  He  had  left  Galilee  and  sent  forth  the 

seventy,  and  was  abiding  in  Peraea,  before  the  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem.  The  fifth  chapter  has  con- 
tained the  principles  of  outward  conduct,  includ- 
ing those  of  the  thought  and  affection  which  are 
the  essential  substance  of  the  conduct.  The  sixth 
contains  no  new  principles  of  conduct,  but  the 
conditions  of  the  Divine  blessing  in  the  good  life. 
It  does  not  teach  men  to  give  alms.  To  do  good 
and  lend,  hoping  for  nothing  again,  has  already 
been  taught.  But  it  says  :  "  When  thou  doest  alms, 
let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand 
doeth ;  that  thine  alms  may  be  in  secret ;  and  thy 


50  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

Father  Who  seeth  in  secret  shall  reward  thee 
openly."  That  is,  if  the  satisfaction  of  reflecting 
upon  the  importance  of  what  one  does  is  the  satis- 
faction sought  in  doing  it,  this  he  may  have.  But 
he  has  not  the  Lord  except  in  doing  it  as  the 
Lord's  work,  with  no  reflection  at  all  upon  self. 

And  so  with  prayer.  If  to  appear  well  before 
men  or  the  self-satisfaction  of  pious  forms,  be  one's 
purpose,  this  he  may  have.  But  there  is  no  com- 
muning with  the  Lord,  and  no  answer  from  Him, 
except  in  the  depths  of  one's  heart,  when  one 
earnestly  desires  the  Divine  help,  and  the  good  of 
the  Divine  life  according  to  the  Divine  laws. 

In  fasting,  again,  or  humbling  the  natural  man, 
the  self  indulges  or  glorifies  the  natural  man  by 
parading  its  afflictions  —  whereby  their  benefit  to 
the  spiritual  man  is  lost.  It  is  the  gladness  of  the 
inner  thought,  in  the  hope  of  a  purer  life,  freed 
from  self  even  through  affliction,  that  the  Lord 
can  comfort  and  bless. 

The  treasures  of  the  heavenly  life  are  distinctly 
presented  as  the  only  treasures  to  be  sought.  It 


TO  LIVE  FROM  GOD. 


51 


is  pointed  out  that  when  from  a  single-hearted 
love  of  good,  one  sees  the  truth,  the  whole  life  is 
guided  wisely.  But  if  a  root  of  self  guides  the 
thought,  it  guides  it  into  darkness.  And  the  ne- 
cessity is  shown  for  choosing  between  the  world 
and  the  Lord,  that  there  may  be  no  reserve  in  serv- 
ing the  Lord  with  all  the  soul  and  heart,  with  no 
secret  reference  to  one's  own  advantage.  And  then 
the  beautiful  appeal  is  made  to  the  fowls  of  the 
air  and  the  lilies  of  the  field,  as  illustrating  the 
Heavenly  Father's  care,  and  showing  how  inno- 
cent and  beautiful  life  is  that  is  not  distorted  by 
man's  self,  but  is  lived  naturally  and  simply  from 
God  as  God's.  This,  then,  should  be  the  ideal  — 
to  live  from  God  as  simply  and  naturally  as  they, 
with  as  absolute  a  trust  as  they;  yet  with  the 
human  knowledge  and  acknowledgment  of  the 
Divine  which  they  have  not. 

And   now  the  discourse  turns  toward  the  final 

judgment,  and  the  relation  of  the  soul  to   God. 

CHAPTER      The  reference  to  self  which  is  natural 

to  one's  thought,  is  by  nature  dispara- 


52  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

ging  to  others.  It  loves  to  exalt  and  justify  self, 
and  therefore  to  see  and  exaggerate  faults  in 
others.  It  judges  harshly ;  it  metes  out  hard 
measure.  To  cast  .out  first  one's  own  desire  to 
justify  self,  surrendering  wholly  to  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord,  is  to  look  upon  others  with  kind  eyes,  to 
see  clearly  and  helpfully,  to  prepare  one's  self  for 
the  judgment  of  mercy. 

To  give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs, 
nor  to  cast  the  pearls  before  swine,  is  a  warning 
that  holy  truths  and  knowledge  of  salvation  are 
not  to  be  held  in  the  service  of  the  lusts  of  appro- 
priating everything  good  to  self;  for  these  will 
destroy  them,  and  destroy  also  the  soul. 

These  evil  ways  of  the  self  are  in  strongest  con- 
trast to  the  Divine  ways.  To  every  one  who 
sincerely  asks  Him  for  good,  the  Father  gives  it ; 
every  one  who  sincerely  seeks  the  truth  of  good 
life,  He  causes  to  find  it ;  and  to  every  one  who 
desires  to  enter  an  interior,  better  state  of  life,  He 
opens  it. 

Natural  good  even  the  evil  will  give  to  their 


THE  TREE  AND  ITS  FRUITS. 


own,  much  more  will  the  Lord  give  spiritual  good 
to  His  own  —  not,  as  appears  to  the  natural  man, 
mere  condemnatory  truths  to  one  who  desires  the 
enjoyment  of  good  life,  nor  stinging  discourage- 
ment to  one  who  desires  a  knowledge  of  good  life  ; 
but  things  which  he  knows  to  be  good,  from  Him- 
self in  heaven.  To  give  to  others  what  is  good  to 
Himself  is  the  law  of  His  life.  That  men  should 
do  the  same  is  the  whole  lesson  of  the  Scriptures 
which  He  has  given  them. 

The  destroying  way  of  the  self-life  was  broad 
and  easy,  and  the  Lord  found  very  many  pressing 
into  it.  The  way  of  heaven  seemed  strait  and 
narrow,  not  merely  because  it  restrained  the  wan- 
dering desires,  but  because  so  few  were  seeking 
it.* 

Scribes  and  Pharisees  were  teaching  as  the 
good  of  the  church  that  which  was  not  good, 
solely  that  they  might  be  honored  and  made  rich. 
They  were  to  be  judged  by  their  fruits.  The 
wisdom  of  charity  did  not  come  from  teachings  of 

*  Heaven  and  Hell,  534. 


54 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


exclusive  holiness,  nor  kindly  helpfulness  from  the 
stinging  of  contemptuous  thoughts.  But  as  are 
the  thoughts  of  the  heart,  so  is  the  real  quality  of 
the  life  —  helpful  and  kindly  if  these  be  good, 
evil  and  hurtful  if  they  be  evil. ' 

Then  follows  the  warning  that  not  mere  knowl- 
edge of  Him,  nor  teaching  about  Him,  nor  com- 
bating errors,  nor  even  wonderful  success  in  con- 
verting many*  really  means  life  from  the  Lord. 
If  these  things  be  not  from  love  for  the  Lord  and 
love  for  souls,  but  with  the  inner  thought  upon 
self  and  the  world,  they  are  all  of  evil. 

And  the  discourse  closes  with  the  parable  of  the 
wise  man  who  built  his  house  upon  a  rock  —  the 
Rock  being  the  Lord  in  his  heart,  and  his  house 
his  life,  which  stands  protected  and  safe  under 
the  wildest  storms  of  temptation  ;  and  of  the  fool- 
ish man  who  built  his  house  upon  the  sand  —  the 
sand  being  not  the  Lord,  .but  knowledge  about 
Him  ;  and  the  house  the  life  based  upon  this  but 
with  no  living  hold  of  the  Lord  ;  which  gives  way 
immediately,  with  the  angry,  destruction  of  all  pro- 

*Apocalypse  Explained,  624. 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  SERMON. 


55 


fessions  of  faith,  when  it  appears  plainly  that  there 
is  no  advantage  to  self  in  them. 

This  is  the  Sermon.  It  begins  with  the  bless- 
ings of  a  life  according  to  the  Commandments.  It 
opens  and  expands  the  Commandments  in  their 
application  to  the  affections  as  well  as  to  the  acts 
of  conduct. 

It  shows  the  conditions  of  life  from  God  in  the 
conduct  —  that  there  be  in  it  no  reflection  upon 
self ;  that  it  be  full  of  prayer  for  life  from  God ; 
that  there  be  cheerful  willingness  in  the  humilia- 
tion of  self ;  that  the  Lord  and  heaven  be  chosen 
as  the  ends  of  life  ;  that  the  life  be  held  freely  and 
naturally  as  His,  with  absolute  trust  in  Him. 

It  teaches  of  the  mercy  of  the  Heavenly 
Father's  love,  and  of  the  charity  with  which  men 
should  regard  one  another ;  encourages  persever- 
ance in  the  way  which  at  first  seems  strait  and 
narrow ;  and  the  bringing  forth  patiently  the 
fruits  of  the  Divine  life.  It  builds  the  Christian 
life  upon  the  Lord. 

No  other  word  could  be  added. 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


Not  as  the  scribes,  from  learning,  did  the  Lord 
teach  these  things;  but  from  His  life.  He  told 
simply  of  the  life  He  loved,  of  the  life  He  was. 
His  words  were  the  absolute  truth  of  Divine 
human  life.  They  were  the  truth,  and  the 
standard  of  truth. 


EFFECTS   OF   THE   LORD'S  PREACHING 
IN   THE   NATURAL   LIFE. 


/T^HE  Christian  law  has  been  given,  the  law 
which  shows  the  possibilities  of  human  life 
from  the  Spirit  of  God. 

The  chapters  which  immediately  follow,  relate 
to  the  working  out  of  this  law  in  the  natural  life  ; 
CHAPTER  later  comes  the  application  to  the  spir- 
itual life  ;  and  lastly  to  the  inmost  life, 
which  brings  full  conjunction  of  the  Divine  with 
the  Human,  or,  in  the  lesser  degrees,  of  the  Lord 
with  man.  This  is  the  whole  of  the  story  of 
Matthew. 

As  regards  the  natural  life,  we  have  first,  a 
short  series  of  beneficent  works  —  the  healing  of 
a  leper,  of  the  palsied  servant  of  the  centurion,  of 
Peter's  wife's  mother,  the  first  stilling  of  the  sea, 
the  casting  out  of  the  swinish  devils,  the  healing 

57 


58  MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 

of  another  paralytic,  also  of  the  woman  who 
touched  His  garments,  the  raising  of  the  ruler's 
daughter,  the  opening  the  eyes  of  the  blind  and 
the  lips  of  the  dumb. 

The  first  effect  of  the  teaching  of  the  Christian 
law  from  the  Divine  love  for  what  is  good  and 
pure  and  orderly,  showing  the  possibilities  of  a  life 
free  from  self,  full  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  was,  as  it 
still  is,  to  reveal  the  deadness  of  the  outward 
forms  of  ordinary  life.  There  were  forms  of  or- 
derly conduct,  of  piety,  of  service ;  but  there  was 
no  sense  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  in  them.  They 
were  merely  natural,  conventional,  full  of  self, 
with  no  spiritual  life  in  them.*  And  this  sense  of 

*  Cicero  well  illustrates  the  state  of  the  world  in  this  re- 
spect:—  "  But  this  indeed  all  mortals  hold  thus  —  that  external 
goods,  vineyards,  corn-fields,  olive-yards,  the  abundance  of  crops 
and  fruits,  in  fine,  every  outward  advantage  and  good  fortune, 
they  have  from  the  gods;  but  virtue  no  one  ever  credits  to  a  god. 
.  .  .  Who  ever  thanked  the  gods  because  he  was  a  good  man  ? 
but  because  he  was  rich,  honored,  or  safe.  De  Natura  Deorum. 
Liber  III.  §  86,  87. 

"  At  that  time  there  were  not  any  spiritual  men,  because  the 
church  was  altogether  destroyed;  but  they  were  all  natural." 
Swedenborg,  in  "The  Apocalypse  Explained,"  n.  513. 

"  Spiritual  good  is  not  given  at  the  present  day,  but  only  nat- 
ural good  with  some."  "The  Last  Judgment,"  n.  38. 


LOYALTY  TO  LAW. 


59 


the  deadness  of  the  outward  life,  with  no  vital  con- 
nection with  God,  is  a  spiritual  leprosy.  No  one 
will  doubt  that  the  touch  of  Jesus  did  bring  a  sense 
of  new  life  from  God  into  the  life  of  man,  and 
made  the  dead  forms  of  worship  and  of  goodness 
live. 

The  next  effect  of  the  reception  of  the  Chris- 
tian law,  represented  by  healing  the  centurion's 
servant,  was  the  renewing  of  the  life  of  obedience 
to  moral  and  civil  law  as  a  duty  to  God. 

Rome  stood  for  moral  and  civil  law,  not  now 
spiritual,  yet  spiritual  in  its  origin,  and  capable  of 
again  forming  a  basis  for  spiritual  life.  The 
Roman  centurion,  or  captain  of  a  hundred,  was 
the  representative  of  such  law  remaining.  In  the 
best  days  of  the  Roman  Republic,  the  spirit  of 
obedience  to  law  as  the  highest  duty,  gave  exam- 
ples of  civic  virtue,  and  devotion  to  the  public 
good,  perhaps  the  most  splendid  that  are  recorded 
in  History.  But  the  republic  was  changing  to  the 
empire.  The  idea  of  the  will  of  God  as  embodied 
in  the  law,  was  giving  place  to  the  idea  of  the  ar- 


60  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

bitrary  will  of  man.  The  joy  of  obedience  to  the 
law  as  a  duty  to  God  was  gone.  The  servant  of 
the  centurion  was  palsied.* 

The  Lord  by  His  example  and  by  His  love  for 
the  law  as  the  way  of  the  Divine  Love  upon  the 
earth,  restored  the  joy  of  obedience,  and  a  zeal  of 
loyalty  to  the  right,  as  a  duty  to  God.  The  spirit 
of  love  for  the  law  as  expressed  in  the  hundred 
and  nineteenth  Psalm,  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord, 
and  is  the  life  of  the  new  Christian  civilization 
which  the  Lord  has  raised  up.  It  is  built  upon 
Him ;  and  His  love  for  the  Divine  law  bears  it  up. 
Israel  and  the  modern  successors  of  Israel  may 
ignore  it ;  but  many  shall  come  from  the  east  and 
from  the  west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  — 
the  foundations  of  which  are  laid  by  a  love  of 
obeying  the  Divine  law  as  the  law  of  life  from 
God. 

*  For  an  admirable  account  of  the  failure  of  the  ancient  loy- 
alty and  the  establishment  of  the  new,  see  Dean  Church's  lec- 
tures on  Roman  Civilization,  and  Civilization  after  Chris- 
tianity, in  "Gifts  of  Civilization  :"  The  Macmillan  Co. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  6 1 

In  Peter's  house,  his  wife's  mother  was  laid,  and 
sick  of  a  fever.  Peter  stands  for  the  new  faith, 
and  his  wife  for  the  enjoyment  in  the  life  accord- 
ing to  it.  Her  mother  stands  for  the  enjoyment 
or  good  of  the  former  faith  —  more  formal  and 
literal,  with  much  hope  of  reward.  Her  fever  is 
from  fear  of  the  loss  of  the  good  she  had,  in  the 
new  and  wiser  ways  of  doing  good  which  the  Lord 
taught.  Thus,  for  example,  the  change  in  the 
keeping  of  the  Sabbath,  from  the  formal  represent- 
ative passiveness,  to  the  Christian  laying  aside  of 
self  for  the  sake  of  instruction  in  truth  and  of 
doing  works  of  charity,  must  have  caused  much 
disturbance  to  the  faithful,  until  they  received  the 
true  Sabbath  spirit  from  the  Lord.  The  Lord's 
touch  gave  her  hand  a  pleasure  in  the  wiser  ser- 
vice which  He  himself  loved  to  do  and  to  teach. 
Her  faithful  loyalty  gained  a  new  expansion  ;  and 
she  arose  and  ministered  unto  them. 

With  the  word  of  His  own  new  life  from  God, 
He  relieved  men  from  the  pressure  of  many  evils 
and  discouragements,  that  their  life  on  this  plane 
of  natural  conduct  and  use  might  be  full. 


62  MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 

But  there  was  another  plane  of  life,  that  of  rec- 
reation, by  enjoyment  of  natural  pleasures  of 
instruction,  of  beauty,  of  food,  of  repose ;  and  this 
was  represented  by  the  other  side  of  the  sea, 
whither  the  Lord  took  His  disciples  to  rest.  Not 
strictly  of  the  Holy  Land,  yet  occupied  by  the 
half  tribe  of  Manasseh,  this  land  of  Bashan  repre- 
sented the  plane  of  recreation,  which  is  not  in 
itself  spiritual,  yet  is  essential  to  the  support  of 
the  spiritual  life.  Jesus  gave  commandment  to 
depart  thither.  And  then  to  a  certain  scribe  who 
offered  to  follow  Him,  He  said  :  "  The  foxes  have 
holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  nests ;  but  the  Son 
of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head."  That 
is,  in  the  outer  natural  man  to  which  He  was 
going  there  are  abiding  places  for  deceitful  lusts, 
and  thoughts  for  self,  but  no  rest  for  the  truth  of 
God.  And  to  another  who  would  first  bury  his 
father  —  representing  the  preserving  and  saving 
of  selfish  desire,  while  one  tries  to  follow  the 
Lord  too  —  He  said,  "  Follow  Me,  and  let  the  dead 
bury  their  dead "  —  that  is,  give  it  up  wholly, 


CONTROL  OF  SENSUAL  LUSTS.  63 

leave  it  with  the  things  that  are  past  and  gone  — 
the  two  little  incidents  illustrating  the  thorough- 
ness of  self-surrender  with  which  the  Lord  would 
have  men  live  the  truth  of  God. 

Passing  over  to  the  other  side,  "  there  arose  a 
great  tempest  in  the  sea,  insomuch  that  the  ship 
was  covered  with  the  waves  ;  but  He  was  asleep." 
He  was  going  to  the  plane  of  natural  enjoyment 
and  upbuilding,  now  occupied  by  swine  and  lovers 
of  swine.  He  was  about  to  cast  out  the  greed  for 
self  which  naturally  possesses  that  part  of  the 
mind,  and  bring  instead  a  peaceful,  orderly  enjoy- 
ment in  the  good  and  beautiful  things  of  nature 
and  of  truth,  which  serve  for  illustration,  delight, 
and  support  to  an  orderly  life  from  God.  The 
tumultuous  resistance  of  the  natural  loves  was 
imaged  by  the  tempest  in  the  sea ;  the  apparent 
absence  of  Divine  care  and  control  of  natural  en- 
joyments, by  His  sleeping ;  but  the  new  sense  of 
His  presence  and  power  in  this  outward  life,  by 
His  awaking,  and  rebuking  the  waves  and  the  sea. 
His  absolute  power  to  subdue  and  control  the  dis- 


64  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

orderly  appetites  of  the  body,  was  both  manifested 
and  represented  by  His  casting  out  the  many 
devils ;  which  took  on  their  true  form  when  they 
entered  into  the  swine,  and  then  rushed  down  into 
the  sea,  which  was  a  representative  of  their  hell. 
Would  that  that  whole  domain  of  the  mind  would 
love  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  clothed  and  in  its 
right  mind,  a  clean  and  orderly  support  to  good 
life  from  the  Lord  in  man,  and  hanker  no  more 
after  the  swine !  With  all  who  sincerely  desire  it, 
this  will  be  the  case  when  the  body  is  put  off. 

The  Lord  returned  to  the  scene  of  His  labor  of 
applying  the  law  to  the  outward  life,  which 
CHAPTER  Matthew  calls,  "  His  own  city."  And 
again  they  bring  to  Him  a  paralytic  — 
not  now  a  centurion's  servant,  representing  the 
need  of  a  new  love  of  obedience  to  law  as  the  law 
of  God  ;  but  one  who  needed  the  encouraging 
words,  "  Son,  be  of  good  cheer ;  thy  sins  be  for- 
given thee."  The  Lord  had  just  cast  out  the 
swinish  devils,  and  now,  returning  to  the  plane 
of  conduct  and  service,  it  is  represented  that 


PURER  MOTIVES  OF  LIFE.  65 

the  motive  for  useful  service  has  been  so  largely 
to  obtain  means  for  swinish  indulgence,  that 
when  the  evil  of  this  is  seen  and  judged,  paralysis 
follows.  The  paralysis  is  healed  by  the  removal 
of  the  selfish  motive,  and  the  reception  of  new 
motives  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  in  those  who 
trust  in  Him  and  serve  obediently.  To  go  to  the 
house  is  to  return  to  normal  states  of  usefulness. 
To  take  up  the  bed  is  to  carry  into  the  use- 
fulness the  trust  in  the  Lord,  which  recognized 
the  control  of  the  Lord  over  the  appetites  of  the 
body,  and  suffices  to  bring  one  to  the  Lord,  but 
not  until  now  has  experience  of  the  joy  of  orderly 
life,  free  from  selfish  ends,  from  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord. 

Matthew,  whose  other  name  was  Levi,  and  who 
stands  in  the  series  of  the  apostles  for  the  bless- 
edness of  a  life  according  to  the  Commandments, 
now  follows  the  Lord  ;  though  before,  for  selfish 
gain,  he  had  sat  "at  the  receipt  of  custom.'*  And 
many  other  publicans  and  sinners  sat  down  to 
meat  with  Jesus  and  His  disciples  —  standing  for 


66  MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 

the  many  selfish  motives  of  gain  and  pleasure, 
which  now  give  way  to  the  Lord's  own  joy  in  an 
orderly  life  according  to  the  truth.  He  had  not 
come  merely  to  preach  repentance,  but  to  bring 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  disciples  of  John 
and  of  the  Pharisees  might  fast,  in  humility  or  for 
show,  but  His  disciples  were  at  a  marriage  feast, 
and  were  entering  into  the  joys  of  a  marriage  life 
that  was  good  as  well  as  true.  They  were  to  live 
a  new  life,  in  which  the  formal  representatives 
of  the  old  life  were  out  of  place. 

Then  came  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  whose 
little  daughter,  representing  a  spiritual  affection 
for  truth,  was  "even  now  dead;."  but  who  said, 
"  Come,  and  lay  Thy  hand  upon  her,  and  she  shall 
live."  Jesus  arose  and  followed  him.  But  before 
He  could  revive  the  little  daughter,  He  must  heal 
the  woman  with  the  issue  of  blood  —  who  repre- 
sents the  vain  longing  and  effort  to  do  good, 
without  knowing  how. 

His  garments  are  His  presentation  of  good  life. 
The  hem  or  fringe  of  them  is  the  formulation  of  it 


RECOGNITION  OF  THE  NEW  LIFE.  67 

in  precepts  of  what  is  to  be  done  or  not  to  be 
done.  To  touch  this  is  to  have  the  efforts  wisely 
directed,  with  no  more  waste.  When  this  is 
accomplished,  the  spiritual  affection  for  truth  may 
be  revived;  for  the  essence  of  the  spiritual  as 
distinguished  from  the  merely  natural,  is  to  love 
truth  for  the  sake  of  use,  and  not  for  the  mere 
knowing. 

The  blind  men,  who,  bound  by  the  old  formal 
teaching,  could  see  neither  good  nor  truth,  now, 
under  the  influence  of  His  genuine  teaching  and 
life,  see  both  plainly.  And  he  who,  possessed  by 
the  old  self-life,  had  no  belief  in  God  to  confess, 
now,  from  the  joy  of  the  new  life,  can  both  con- 
fess and  praise  Him. 

It  was  a  new  life,  never  before  so  received  in 
the  church.  To  those  who  were  so  full  of  self 
that  they  could  conceive  of  no  other  motive,  it 
was  the  pretence  of  a  supreme  selfishness.  But 
the  good  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  went 
forth,  and  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  brought  health 
and  happy  life  wherever  He  was  received. 


68  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

These  are  briefly  the  vivifying  effects  of  the 
Lord's  love  for  the  Divine  commandments,  when 
received  in  the  plane  of  conduct.  It  brings  a 
living  connection  between  the  Divine  and  what 
are  otherwise  dead  forms.  It  kindles  a  new  joy 
in  obedience  to  law  as  a  duty  to  God.  It  changes 
a  merely  formal  service  to  a  service  of  usefulness. 
It  removes  infestations  and  discouragements,  that 
the  life  may  be  free.  It  subdues  and  controls  the 
appetites  of  the  body.  It  substitutes  for  motives 
of  self-indulgence,  an  enjoyment  in  usefulness 
from  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  And  for  many  dis- 
orderly motives  it  brings  the  love  of  orderly  life 
according  to  the  truth.  It  is  not  merely  repress- 
ive ;  it  brings  new  and  purer  joys  in  the  place  of 
the  old.  It  furnishes  a  Divine  guidance  to  all 
efforts  to  do  good  ;  and  kindles  a  spiritual  affec- 
tion for  the  truth  for  the  sake  of  use.  It  opens 
the  eyes  to  see  things  as  they  really  are ;  and  the 
lips  to  praise  the  God  of  life. 

This  completes  the  series  of  the  effects  of  the 
Lord's  preaching  in  the  natural  life. 


THE     INSTRUCTION    AND    GATHERING 

TOGETHER   OF    THOSE   WHO   WILL 

RECEIVE   THE    LORD. 


/PT^HE  apostles  now  first  are  sent  forth,  the 
whole  nature  of  their  message  having  been 
made  plain.  They  are  twelve,  representing  as 
CHAPTER  many  forms  of  reception  of  the  Lord's 
message.  Arranged  in  three  groups 
of  four  each,  they  may  be  regarded  as,  first,  a 
celestial  series,  from  hearing  to  love  —  Simon  and 
Andrew,  James  and  John  ;  second,  a  spiritual 
series,  from  understanding  to  the  blessedness  of 
the  life  of  truth  —  Philip  and  Bartholomew, 
Thomas  and  Matthew ;  and,  lastly,  a  natural 
series,  from  enjoyment  in  doing  good,  to,  in  its 
redeemed,  regenerate  form,  a  despairing  confes- 
sion of  the  failure  of  the  self,  and  full  ascription 
of  all  to  the  Lord  —  James,  the  son  of  Alpheus, 
and  Lebbeus,  Simon  the  zealot  and  Judas  Iscariot. 

69 


7° 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


These  were  to  bear  the  message  of  the  Lord, 
and,  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  do  for  others 
what  He  had  done  for  them.  They  were  not  to 
turn  aside  to  those  confirmed  in  evil  and  falsity, 
but  go  to  those  who  desired  to  be  good.  They 
were  to  preach  of  the  Divine  goodness  and  truth 
of  the  Lord,  and  teach  the  way  of  life  from  Him. 
They  were  to  overcome  evils  and  discouragements, 
and  teach  freely  the  new  joy  in  life  which  the 
Lord  was  giving  them.  They  were  not  to  claim 
any  truth  of  life  as  their  own,  nor  to  seek  any 
satisfaction  to  self-love.  They  were  not  to  be 
both  their  own  and  the  Lord's,  but  the  Lord's 
alone.  They  were  to  go  in  the  love  of  saving,  and 
abide  in  the  love  of  saving,  and  bring  the  peace  of 
the  Lord  and  heaven  to  all  who  would  receive  it. 
They  were  to  be  innocent  and  prudent,  speaking 
not  from  themselves,  but  as  the  Lord  should  give 
them  to  speak.  Evil  would  fight  against  them 
and  falsity,  but  the  Lord  would  protect  His  own ; 
no  real  harm  could  come  to  them.  Suffering 
would  only  make  them  more  fully  the  Lord's. 


PREACHING  FROM  THE  LORD. 


Conflict  there  would  necessarily  be  between  the 
self-life  and  the  new  life  from  the  Lord.  If  one 
adhered  to  the  self  he  would  lose  the  Lord  ;  cru- 
cifying it  for  the  Lord's  sake,  he  would  find  the 
Lord.  To  love  the  truth  for  the  sake  of  truth, 
and  good  for  the  sake  of  good,  would  make  them 
forms  of  truth  and  good,  with  the  joy  of  them. 
Every  least  exercise  of  charity  from  obedience  to 
the  Lord  would  bring  something  of  heaven  into 
the  life. 


THE    RELATION   TO  JOHN'S  TEACHING. 


^  I  ^HERE  were  those  who  loved  evil  and  falsity, 
who  would  hate  and  resist  the  Lord.  But 
there  were  also  those  in  more  literal  states  of  un- 
CHAPTER  derstanding  and  life,  who  would  doubt, 
and  for  a  time  not  be  able  to  receive. 
John  in  the  prison  represents  such  literal  truth, 
denied  by  the  world  as  Divine  law,  but  held  as  a 
useful  servant  of  the  civil  law.  They  who  are  in 
such  truth  look  for  a  more  manifest  kingdom  to 
justify  their  faith.  A  spiritual  kingdom  hardly 
seems  to  them  real.  Hence  John's  question  — 
"  Art  thou  He  that  should  come,  or  look  we  for 
another  ? " 

The  answer  was  in  the  good  that  the  presence 
of  the  Lord  was  doing  to  the  souls  and  lives  of 
men  ;  and  that  they  who  loved  the  literal  truth  for 
the  good  that  it  would  do,  should  find  no  stum- 


THE  LETTER  AND  THE  SPIRIT. 


73 


bling  block  in  the  truth  of  the  Lord's  Spirit,  which 
was  doing  much  greater  good. 

Then  follows  a  comparison  between  the  literal 
truth  and  the  spiritual;  both  justified  as  the  chil- 
dren of  wisdom ;  one  the  necessary  preparation 
for  the  other.  The  letter  of  the  Word,  as  men  in- 
terpreted it,  was  turned  to  justify  everything  ;  it 
was  a  reed  shaken  by  every  wind.*  It  was  a  rude 
outer  garment  for  the  soft  and  shining  truth  of 
the  inner  life.  It  was  the  truth  from  God,  sent 
before  His  face  to  prepare  the  way  for  Himself, 
Among  the  teachers  of  such  truth,  the  outer  form 
of  which  was  born  of  men,  the  greatest  was  John, 
who  gathered  its  essential  lessons  into  one,  and 
applied  them  to  prepare  men  for  the  Lord.  And 
yet  the  least  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Law  as  the  Lord  revealed  it,  was  greater  than  he. 
The  representatives  of  the  Lord  and  His  kingdom 
had  lasted  until  John ;  but  now  the  Lord  had 
opened  the  kingdom  itself,  and  men  were  forcibly 
and  eagerly  taking  possession  of  it. 

*  Arcana  Coelestia,  9372. 


74 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


The  church  of  that  generation  rejected  them 
both.  As  children  in  their  plays  imitate  the  pro- 
cessions of  the  funerals  and  the  weddings — wail- 
ing to  their  fellows,  or  piping ;  and  they  will 
respond  to  neither  —  so  John  had  taught  the  sad 
duty  of  repentance,  and  the  laying  down  of  natu- 
ral evil  pleasure ;  and  the  Lord  had  brought  the 
glad  tidings  of  a  new  life  of  joy  from  a  marriage 
with  His  Spirit ;  and  they  rejected  both.  The 
men  of  the  old  time,  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  and 
Sodom,  had  sinned  against  the  literal  truth ;  but 
the  people  of  Chorazin,  Bethsaida,  and  Capernaum, 
where  the  works  of  His  love  and  truth  had  been 
most  abounding,  were  sinning  against  a  far 
greater  light  than  they. 

This  part  of  the  story  closes  with  the  thanks- 
giving of  the  Lord  that  they  who  were  full  of  the 
wisdom  and  intelligence  of  evil,  did  not  receive 
Him  ;  but  only  those  who  were  innocent,  attribu- 
ting little  to  self,  willing  to  be  led  ;  and  with  His 
merciful  invitation  to  all  who  were  laboring  with 
the  burdens  of  the  insatiable  demands  of  self,  to 


THE  YOKE  OF  LOVE. 


75 


take  His  yoke,  which  was  the  yoke  of  love,  and 
learn  from  Him  to  do  good,  in  meekness  and  low- 
liness of  heart.  So  should  their  labor  of  love  be 
easy,  and  their  burden  light. 


CONFLICT   WITH   JEWISH  TEACHING. 


*V\  7E  have  followed  the  beneficent  effects  of 
the  truth  of  the  Lord's  love  with  the 
good,  the  preparation  for  their  instruction  and 
CHAPTER  gathering  together,  the  teaching  to 
those  in  more  literal  states.  Now  we 
come  to  the  teaching  of  those  who  are  in  the 
evils  of  the  church.  The  test  comes  here,  as 
both  before  and  after  at  Jerusalem,  in  the  keeping 
of  the  Sabbath.  The  Sabbath  was  instituted  as 
a  representative  of  the  peacefulness  of  the  love 
of  God  in  men,  when  the  labors  of  conflict 
with  evil  are  over.  The  right  keeping  of  the 
Sabbath  was  emphasized  both  by  Moses  and  by 
the  prophets  as  the  evidence  of  faithfulness  to 
God.  The  emphasis  of  the  law  was  naturally 
placed  upon  the  refraining  from  labor  —  the 
ceasing  to  do  evil,  in  order  that  they  might 

76 


THE  TRUE  SABBATH. 


77 


learn  to  do  well.  And  yet  there  were  not 
wanting  suggestions  of  the  happy  life  from  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord,  which  is  the  true  purpose 
of  the  Sabbath — as  in  the  beautiful  passage  in 
Isaiah :  "  If  thou  turn  away  thy  foot  from  the 
Sabbath,  from  doing  thy  pleasure  on  My  holy  day ; 
and  call  the  Sabbath  a  delight,  the  holy  of  Je- 
hovah, honorable  ;  and  shalt  honor  Him,  not  doing 
thine  own  ways,  nor  finding  thine  own  pleasure, 
nor  speaking  thine  own  words ;  then  shalt  thou 
delight  thyself  in  Jehovah ;  and  I  will  cause  thee 
to  ride  upon  the  high  places  of  the  earth,  and  feed 
thee  with  the  heritage  of  Jacob  thy  father ;  for  the 
mouth  of  Jehovah  hath  spoken  it."  (Iviii.  13,  14.) 
The  Jews  had  hedged  about  the  keeping  of  the 
Sabbath  with  vexatious  guards  which  no  one  could 
fully  know,  but  in  keeping  which  they  had  the 
sense  of  supreme  holiness  and  self-satisfaction. 
The  Lord  came,  keeping  it  as  the  day  for  the 
special  revealing  of  the  Heavenly  Father's  love. 
He  led  His  disciples  through  the  wheat-fields. 
He  was  teaching  them  of  heavenly  uses,  and 


7  8  MATTHEWS  GOSPEL. 

doing  these  before  their  eyes  ;  and  as  their  minds 
were  fed,  they  plucked  also  the  ears  of  the  grain, 
which  corresponded  to  such  uses,  and  did  eat 
The  Pharisees  reproved  Him  for  permitting  what 
was  not  lawful.  But  the  Lord  replied  that  David, 
whose  representative  life  He  was  fulfilling,  took 
of  the  bread  of  the  Divine  Presence,  and  gave 
to  his  followers ;  and  He  was  doing  the  same. 

In  their  synagogue  there  was  a  man  whose 
hand  was  withered.  Their  own  teaching  withered 
the  hand  that  would  do  good  from  God.  They 
asked  Him,  "  Is  it  lawful  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath 
days?  that  they  might  accuse  Him."  He  an- 
swered, "It  is  lawful  to  do  well  on  the  Sabbath 
days,"  and  with  the  Father's  own  love  of  doing 
good  He  restored  the  withered  hand. 

This  brought  the  issue  plainly  to  view.  With 
them  their  own  pride  of  holiness  was  the  good 
of  the  Sabbath,  and  the  purpose  of  the  church. 
To  Him  the  revelation  of  the  Father's  love  and 
a  fuller  life  from  it  was  the  good  of  the  Sabbath, 
and  the  purpose  of  the  church.  With  the  issue 


REJECTED  BY  THE  PHARISEES.  79 

thus  stated,  the  Pharisees  immediately  "  held  a 
council  against  Him,  how  they  might  destroy 
Him  ;  "  while  He  withdrew  Himself  from  thence, 
that  He  might  show  judgment  to  the  Gentiles, 
who  would  trust  in  His  name.  To  the  Pharisees 
now  He  was  as  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  devils ; 
while  truly  His  work  was  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
It  was  not  now  against  human  imperfections  that 
they  were  speaking,  but  against  the  Spirit  of  God. 
And  they  who  so  spoke  were  evil  from  the  roots, 
and  could  never  be  restored.  An  evil  and  adul- 
terous generation  they  were,  like  Jonas  refusing 
the  truth  of  God  to  the  suffering  world ;  but 
He,  meeting  and  overcoming  the  depths  of  their 
evil,  would  fulfil  the  mission  which  they  had 
refused. 

The  Gentiles  would  receive  the  truth  reasonably 
presented,  and  would  repent ;  but  the  Jews  would 
not.  Among  the  Gentiles  was  affection  for  the 
truth  of  heaven  ;  but  not  with  them. 

They  had  the  Word  of  God,  and  professed  to 
know  it ;  but  they  had  perverted  it  to  confirm 


8o  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

worse  evils  than  those  who  had  it  not.  Yet  there 
were  those  who  would  be  brother,  and  sister,  and 
mother  to  Him  —  sharing  His  end  of  good,  His 
affection  for  truth,  His  love  of  doing  the  will  of 
the  Father  in  heaven. 

There  follows  immediately,  "  the  same  day/1 
the  parable  of  the  Sower,  and  of  the  several 
CHAPTER  kinds  of  rejection  and  reception  that 
the  Word  would  meet ;  also  of  the  tares 
and  the  wheat,  which  must  grow  together  until 
the  harvest ;  and  many  parables  illustrating  the 
preciousness  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  its 
separation  from  the  evil. 

Then  is  recounted  His  rejection  at  Nazareth, 
here  called  "  His  own  country,"  the  beginning 
of  His  rejection  in  Galilee  ;  of  which  it  is  only 
to  be  said  that  as  His  own  sojourn  in  that  place 
of  Seclusion  in  the  tribe  of  Zebulon  represented 
His  labor  of  uniting  the  good  of  the  Father's  love 
with  the  truth,  so  there  was  there  a  perverse 
uniting  of  evil  with  falsity  in  those  who  were 
related  only  to  the  outer  nature  which  He  was 
putting  off. 


DEATH    OF   JOHN. 


Herod  says  of  Jesus,  "  This  is  John  the 
Baptist;  he  is  risen  from  the  dead;  and 
therefore  mighty  works  do  show  forth  themselves 
CHAPTER  *n  nmi>"  which,  in  an  important  sense, 

XIV*          was  the  truth. 

A  study  of  his  genealogy  I  think  will  show 
that  "that  fox,"  Herod  Antipas,  son  of  Herod 
the  Great,  stands  for  and  was  the  lust  of  falsify- 
ing, deceiving,  for  the  sake  of  evil  pleasure ;  that 
Herodias  was  and  stands  for  love  for  living  the 
evil  according  to  such  deceitful  falsity ;  and  that 
her  daughter  Salome,  the  Peaceful,  stands  for  en- 
tirely shameless,  unrestrained,  enjoyment  in  evil. 

Herod  was  a  fox,  with  no  real  regard  for  the 
Divine  law  except  for  the  sake  of  appearances. 
As  a  Roman  governor  he  must  pretend  to  esteem 
it ;  and  on  this  account,  as  is  said  in  another  Gos- 

81 


82  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

pel,  "feared  John,  and  kept  him  safe,"  and  "was 
perplexed"  —turning  as  a  fox  does;  and  though 
he  "would  have  put  him  to  death,  he  feared  the 
multitude,  because  they  counted  him  as  a  prophet." 
But  the  day  of  the  glorification  of  his  self-intelli- 
gence arrived,  when,  intoxicated  by  flattery,  the 
delight  of  unrestrained  enjoyment  of  evil  carried 
him  away,  and  he  promised  to  share  his  kingdom 
with  it.  The  price  of  such  enjoyment  was  the 
total  rejection  of  the  Divine  commands  as  of  any 
restraining  authority.  There  was  some  regret  in 
yielding  the  appearance  of  regard  for  them  —  for 
hypocrites  give  up  their  pretences  reluctantly;  it 
leaves  the  fox  without  a  hole  —  but  evil  and  flat- 
tery carried  the  day,  and  John  was  beheaded. 

His  disciples  burying  the  body,  and  going  and 
telling  Jesus,  meant  that  the  truth  of  the  Divine 
law  of  life,  thus  rejected  by  the  world,  the  Lord 
would  raise  up.  For  it  is  a  necessity,  in  order 
that  the  human  race  may  exist  upon  the  earth, 
that  somewhere  the  Divine  Commandments  should 
be  known  and  kept  as  the  laws  of  God. 


JESUS   REVIVES   JOHN'S    WORK. 


"THEREFORE  immediately  Jesus  departed 
into  a  desert  place  apart.  It  was  into  the 
wild  land  of  Bashan  that  He  went,  in  the  borders 
of  which  —  at  Beth-abara,  or  Bethania  (Roman, 
Batanea)  —  John  had  baptized,  and  Jesus  had  been 
baptized  by  him.  And  here  in  His  Divine  way 
He  reoccupied  the  field  from  which  John  had 
perished. 

John  had  come  neither  eating  bread  nor  drink- 
ing wine.  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating  and 
drinking.  John  purified  this  natural  plane  of  rest 
and  refreshment,  from  its  self-indulgent  excesses. 
The  Lord  also  had  in  this  same  country  subdued 
the  swinish  spirits.  And  now  the  Lord  taught  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  the  order  of  heaven, 
and  fed  the  multitude  with  bread  from  heaven. 
He  filled  the  natural  plane  of  life  with  its  orderly 

83 


84  MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 

enjoyments,  that  it  might    give  proper   and   full 
support  to  the  spiritual  life. 

From  the  account  in  John's  Gospel  we  learn 
that  Jesus  perceived  that  the  people,  excited  by 
the  miracle,  would  come  and  take  him  by  force 
to  make  Him  a  King.  The  Lord  "constrained 
His  disciples  to  get  into  a  ship,  and  to  go  before 
Him  unto  the  other  side  while  He  sent  the  multi- 
tudes away."  The  wind  was  contrary,  and  the 
ship  was  tossed  with  waves,  the  disciples  laboring 
vainly  to  bring  it  to  land.  The  tumult  of  their 
own  natural  hopes  was  imaged  thus  ;  and  the 
Lord's  labor  to  quiet  the  tumult,  by  His  praying 
alone  on  the  mountain.  With  His  own  heart 
quiet,  He  came  to  them  in  the  end  of  the  night, 
walking  upon  the  sea.  The  disciples'  faith  and 
the  limits  of  it  were  shown  by  Peter's  attempt  to 
go  to  Him  on  the  sea.  He  believed  in  Him  as 
the  Messiah  Who  was  to  come  into  the  world ; 
but  this  was  not  enough  to  save  him  from  the 
sea  of  worldliness.  The  power  that  lifted  him 
out  of  this  was  "of  a  truth  .  .  .  the  Son  of 
God." 


CONFLICT  WITH  THE  TRADITIONS.  85 

They  came  to  the  land,  and  more  wonderful 
powers  of  healing  than  ever  went  forth  from 
Him. 

But  it  was  a  Passover  time,  which  is  a  time  of 
judgment  as  well  as  of  deliverance.  And  we 
learn  from  John  that  when  the  people  heard  that 
it  was  only  the  bread  of  heaven  that  He  would 
give  them,  and  not  the  riches  of  the  world 
separate  from  heaven,  "many  of  His  disciples 
went  back  and  walked  no  more  with  Him " 
(JOHN  vi.).  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  in 
Galilee. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Matthew's  account  to 
present  here  the  irreconcilable  conflict  between 
CHAPTER  tne  traditions  of  the  elders  and  the 
commandments  of  God.  The  "scribes 
and  Pharisees  which  were  of  Jerusalem "  were 
the  representatives  of  the  traditions  as  received 
from  Jerusalem  in  Galilee.  They  blamed  His 
disciples  for  their  neglect  of  the  formal  washing 
of  the  hands,  by  which  they  themselves  preserved 
their  supreme  holiness  ;  but  they  made  the  com- 


86  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

mand  to  honor  father  and  mother  of  none  effect 
by  their  tradition  —  both  as  regarded  natural 
parents  and  the  love  of  God  and  the  truth  of 
the  church  which  are  the  spiritual  Father  and 
Mother.  They  made  no  account  of  the  evil 
thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornications,  thefts, 
false  witness,  blasphemies,  which  proceeded  out 
of  the  heart;  but  condemned  for  eating  with 
unwashen  hands.  They  were  a  plant  which  the 
Heavenly  Father  had  not  planted,  and  which 
should  be  rooted  up. 


MISSION   TO   THE   GENTILES. 


T  TE  left  Capernaum,  and  departed  into  the 
neighboring  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon ; 
finding  in  this  Gentile  country  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  God  of  Israel  was  the  living  God, 
from  Whom  the  Gentiles  had  the  crumbs  of 
heavenly  knowledge  on  which  they  subsisted ; 
finding  also  that  the  evils  of  the  church  were 
destroying  the  Gentile  affection  for  the  truth  of 
the  church,  which  was  restored  by  His  presence 
and  His  Divine  fulfilment  of  the  Word. 

Once  more  He  returns  to  the  other  side  of 
the  sea  of  Galilee,  recovering  the  lame,  blind, 
dumb,  maimed,  and  many  others,  quickening  all 
the  natural  powers  of  mind  and  body  to  know 
and  serve  and  glorify  the  God  of  Israel. 

Once  more  He  fed  a  multitude  upon  the 
mountain  slope  in  Bashan.  But  it  appears  to 

87 


88  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

have  been  a  multitude  gathered  from  the  Gentile 
cities  of  Decapolis,  not  as  before  following  from 
Gennesaret.  With  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  He 
before  had  filled  five  thousand  men,  leaving 
twelve  baskets  full  of  fragments  —  representing 
the  abundance  of  truth  of  happy  life  that  He 
could  open  to  those  that  had  the  Word.  But 
they  were  so  full  of  worldly  expectations  and 
desires,  that  they  rejected  Him  Who  brought 
them  only  the  bread  that  came  down  from 
heaven.  But  now  of  the  Gentile  multitude  He 
fed  four  thousand  with  seven  loaves  and  a  few 
little  fishes,  and  they  took  up  of  the  fragments 
that  .were  left,  seven  baskets  full.  It  was  a 
different  reception  of  the  truth  of  heaven  now, 
both  with  the  disciples  who  had  passed  through 
the  former  temptation  and  been  warned  by  it, 
and  by  the  more  simple  Gentile  people  who 
partook  with  them.  The  seven  loaves  are  such 
truth  of  heaven  as  brings  the  Sabbath  state  of 
conjunction  with  the  Lord  after  temptation.  The 
four  thousand  are  those  who  can  receive  the 


THE  SIGNS  OF  THE  SKY.  89 

good  of  heaven  from  the  Lord  as  well  as  the 
truth  about  it.  The  seven  baskets  left  are 
the  holy  memories  of  such  communion  with  the 
Lord. 

Not  to  Capernaum,  but  to  "the  coasts  of 
Magdala"  Jesus  now  turned,  meeting  there  the 
CHAPTER  Pharisees  with  the  Sadducees  —  rep- 
resentatives of  the  pride  of  holiness 
and  the  worldliness  of  the  Jews.  They  knew  the 
signs  of  the  sky,  and  could  discern  the  red  sky 
of  the  evening  from  the  red  and  lowering  morn- 
ing; but  the  state  of  the  church  they  could 
not  discern.  The  reddening  of  the  sun  by  the 
evening  exhalations  of  earth  might  mean  only 
the  normal  state  of  external  enjoyments  follow- 
ing the  labors  of  the  day.  But  the  morning  sky 
red  and  lowering,  ready  to  precipitate  when  the 
sun  lifted  the  heavy  air,  meant  the  filling  the 
interiors  of  the  mind  with  the  world  and  self 
instead  of  the  Lord  and  heaven.  This  they  took 
for  a  day  of  beauty,  when  really  the  storm  of 
judgment  was  close  at  hand.  Jonas  was  a  sign 


9° 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


to  them  that  the  truth  was  now  to  be  preached 
to  the  Gentiles  for  their  salvation,  while  the 
Jews  would  be  left  desolate  and  angry. 

With  a  word  of  warning  to  His  disciples,  this 
part  of  the  story  closes.  They  were  to  shun 
all  thought  of  eminence,  either  spiritual  or  natural, 
as  His  disciples.  The  good  that  He  gave,  both 
spiritual  and  natural,  was  abundant  for  all.  It 
was  intended  for  uses  to  all,  and  not  for  the 
exclusive  eminence  of  any  one. 


THE  FULNESS  OF  THE  DIVINE  IN  THE 
NATURAL  LIFE. 


CHAPTER 
XVII. 


TT  is  probable  that  at  this  point,  when  the 
work  in  Galilee  was  drawing  to  a  close, 
occurred  the  visit  to  Jerusalem  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles.  In  this  feast  was  cele- 
brated the  full  ripening  of  the  fruits 
of  the  year,  especially  of  the  oil  and  the  wine. 
It  represented  the  ripening  of  the  regenerate  life, 
especially  as  to  its  wisdom  of  charity  and  of  the 
mercy  of  the  Lord.  In  the  Lord  the  observance 
of  it  was  a  representative  of  the  ripening  of  the 
Divine  Human  life,  and  the  preparation  to  reject 
that  which  had  been  only  the  means  of  receiving 
and  maturing  the  Divine.  It  marks  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  winter  of  His  life,  which  ended 
with  the  cross,  the  resurrection,  the  ascension. 
With  all  this  fully  in  view,  He  returned  to 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


Caesarea  Philippi,  under  the  slopes  of  the  noble 
Hermon,  whose  snows  are  the  source  of  the 
Jordan,  and  in  some  sort  typify  the  formulas 
of  the  Ancient  Church,  whence  flow  the  cleansing 
waters  of  the  letter  of  our  Scriptures. 

There  Peter  renewed  and  deepened  the  con- 
fession called  forth  by  the  stilling  of  the  sea, 
saying,  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God."  And  the  Lord,  accepting  this  as 
the  truth,  and  the  foundation  of  His  church, 
nevertheless  added  the  needed  forewarning  of 
suffering  and  death  before  the  Divine  presence 
with  men  could  be  perfect.  He  added  also  that 
a  similar  loss  of  the  natural  life  all  must  endure 
who  would  be  His  disciples. 

Then  up  into  the  high  mountain  He  led  His 
three  disciples,  that  they  might  see  there  the 
ripening  Divine  Human  which  was  His  inner 
self,  and  needed  now  not  much  but  the  rejection 
of  the  finite  body  to  be  the  presence  of  God 
with  men. 

The    mountain,    no   doubt,    was    Hermon,   the 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE   WORD. 


93 


southern  terminus  of  the  Anti-Lebanon  range. 
The  meaning  of  this  range  seems  to  be  closely 
related  to  that  of  the  Lebanon,  whose  forests 
of  cedar  it  probably  once  shared.  In  relation 
to  Palestine  when  occupied  by  the  Jewish 
Church,  it  seems  to  stand  for  the  wisdom  of 
the  Ancient  Church  in  its  relation  to  the  letter 
of  the  Jewish  Scriptures — on  a  much  higher 
level  than  the  Jewish  Church,  but  now  to  it  a 
memory  of  representatives  and  formal  precepts, 
whence  most  of  its  laws  and  ceremonies  were 
derived.  Whether  that  be  so  or  not,  the  high 
mountain  on  earth  represents  a  high  mountain 
in  heaven  ;  which  at  that  time  could  be  no  other 
than  the  mountain  of  the  Ancient  Heavens.  To 
open  the  eyes  of  the  disciples  to  see  Him  there 
was  to  cause  them  to  see  Him  as  the  angels 
of  these  heavens  saw  Him,  His  face  shining 
as  the  sun,  and  His  raiment  white  as  the  light. 
The  appearance  of  Moses  and  Elias  with  Him 
shows  that  it  was  as  the  Word  fulfilled  that 
He  so  appeared,  that  it  was  the  fulfilling  of 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


the  Word  that  had  made  Him  what  He  was; 
and  it  was  that  fulfilment  of  the  Word  which 
as  to  its  interiors  did  shine  as  the  sun,  and  as 
to  its  exteriors  was  white  as  the  light. 

The  faith  of  the  early  church,  represented 
by  Peter,  was  delighted  with  such  glimpses  as 
they  had  of  the  Lord's  fulfilment  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  would  have  made  them  permanent  if 
they  could.  But  they  were  not  prepared  for 
the  opening  of  the  spiritual  sense;  nor  for  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  Lord  as  the  Sun  of 
heaven,  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth.  They 
descended  into  the  letter,  whence  once  more,  as 
at  the  baptism,  came  the  voice,  "  This  is  My  be- 
loved Son,  in  Whom  I  am  well  pleased."  Even 
this  is  more  than  the  church  has  been  able  to 
receive  or  bear  ;  and  in  Infinite  gentleness  the 
Lord  has  touched  them,  and  they  have  known 
Him  as  Jesus  only. 

It  was  an  astonishment  to  the  disciples,  and 
brought  up  the  doubt  that  Elias  must  first  come. 
The  answer  is  that  the  letter  of  the  Word  must 


THE  FIRST  IMPERFECT  FAITH. 


95 


indeed  first  be  established  ;  and  those  who  reject 
that  will  reject  the  Lord,  but  those  who  receive 
that  will  receive  the  Lord  ;  for  He  is  the  Word. 
Under  the  mountain  they  met  the  multitude, 
and  the  father  whose  son  was  lunatic  and  sore 
vexed,  possessed  of  a  devil  whom  the  disciples 
could  not  cast  out.  The  father  is  the  good  of 
the  former  representative  church,  watching  anx- 
iously over  the  truth  of  the  new  Christian 
Church.  That  truth  almost  from  the  beginning 
has  been  lunatic  and  sore  vexed,  falling  oft  into 
the  fires  of  self-love  and  oft  into  the  waters  of 
faith  alone.  And  the  church  has  not  been  able 
to  set  it  right  because  of  her  lack  of  faith  in 
her  Lord  as  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth.  With 
even  the  rudiments  of  such  faith,  the  mountain 
of  self  might  be  removed,  and  the  sense  of 
living  from  the  Lord  alone  might  come ;  and  no 
good  would  be  impossible.  Howbeit  this  was  not 
to  come  for  long  ages,  until  the  church  should 
be  humbled  by  prayer  and  fasting.  In  a  larger 
sense  the  love  of  being  one's  own  had  come 


96 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


upon  the  race  as  a  child,  and  was  not  to  be 
cast  out  by  faith  like  that  of  the  apostles,  nor 
by  any  less  faith  than  that  the  Lord  is  our 
Heavenly  Father,  God  Himself  with  us.  And 
this  must  have  its  roots  in  the  desire  to  be 
wholly  His,  and  not  one's  own. 

Again  the  Lord  speaks  of  His  own  death, 
which  was  necessary  in  order  that  nothing  might 
limit  the  presence  and  work  of  the  Divine  Love 
in  Him. 

He  acknowledges  indeed  that  the  truth  by 
which  His  Human  was  re-formed  to  be  the  hab- 
itation of  God  with  men,  was  learned  from  the 
Word  and  the  church  by  His  natural  love  of 
learning.  The  fish  He  permitted  to  pay  tribute 
for  Him.  But  He  was  now  the  Son  of  God,  the 
love  itself  of  God  with  men,  and  needed  not  to 
be  redeemed  by  the  truth. 


LAST   APPEALS    IN   GALILEE. 


pHERE  follows  now  the  series  of  discourses 
which  go  so  deep  into  the  hearts  of  men, 
and  reveal  so  deeply  the  saving  love  of  the  Father 
CHAPTER  m  tne  Lord.  The  disciples  were  think- 
ing of  greatness  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  —  a  thought  which  has  never  yet  left 
the  Christian  Church.  But  the  Lord  told  them 
that  to  be  a  little  child,  to  claim  nothing  for 
self  and  desire  nothing  for  self,  was  the  great- 
ness of  heaven  ;  and  to  lose  this  innocence  was 
to  sink  into  the  depths  of  the  sea. 

Experience  of  evil  would  come  with  the  devel- 
opment of  the  natural  life,  but  it  was  to  be 
rejected  as  soon  as  recognized.  Whatever  ap- 
pealed -to  one's  self-love,  by  allurement  or  flat- 
tery or  self  indulgence,  was  to  be  rejected,  that 
the  life  might  be  simple,  from  God,  and  obe- 

97 


98  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

dient.  Whatever  suggested  a  thought  of  evil 
with  desire,  was  to  be  rejected,  that  the  idea  of 
God  and  heaven  might  ever  be  before  the  mind. 
Innocence  as  of  little  children  would  always  be- 
hold the  face  of  the  Father  in  Heaven.  It  was 
such  innocence  as  this  that  the  Lord  had  come 
to  recover.  It  existed  in  the  ninety  and  nine  in 
heaven  ;  but  here  upon  earth  it  had  almost  per- 
ished. In  its  tenderness  arid  gratefulness  when 
rescued  He  would  greatly  rejoice. 

He  had  come  as  a  brother  to  brethren  —  to 
save  and  not  to  condemn  —  to  show  them  their 
fault  and  their  danger,  that  they  might  hear  and 
be  saved.  He  was  ready  to  illustrate  in  every 
way,  by  what  was  good  and  what  was  true  and 
what  was  practically  useful  or  necessary.  He 
was  ready  to  appeal  to  all  that  was  known  of 
good  life  or  of  the  teachings  of  God.  If  all 
was  rejected,  men  still  were  not  condemned ;  they 
themselves  refused  the  good  of  heaven.  What 
they  accepted  or  refused  on  earth,  they  would 
accept  or  refuse  for  ever. 


ENDLESS  FORGIVENESS. 


99 


Thus  was  He  working  for  men,  and  so  must 
His  disciples  work.  And  wherever  they  worked 
from  both  love  and  truth,  His  spirit  would  be 
in  them,  and  the  Divine  blessing  would  be  in 
their  work. 

The  spirit  of  forgiveness  is  the  supreme  test 
of  the  quality  of  the  church.  The  faith  of  the 
church,  represented  by  Peter,  was  ready  to  for- 
give as  a  duty  as  often  as  it  was  required.  But 
true  charity  would  forgive  endlessly.  So  does 
the  Lord  forgive.  For  all  that  one  has  and  is 
he  is  indebted  to  the  Lord,  and  he  can  pay  the 
debt  only  by  devoting  all  that  he  has  and  is  to 
the  Lord's  service.  The  Lord  forgives  him  the 
debt  —  gives  him  his  freedom,  that  he  may  pay 
as  he  will.  If  he  from  his  heart  forgives  others, 
his  powers  are  in  the  Lord's  service,  and  he  is 
paying  the  debt  as  he  can.  But  if  he  does  not 
forgive,  even  the  Infinite  Mercifulness  cannot 
save  him  from  the  torment  of  a  cankered  heart 
and  acrid  thought,  which  no  kindness  can  relieve. 


THE    LAW    OF    THE    SPIRITUAL    LIFE, 


'THHUS  Jesus  finished  His  work  in  Galilee.  He 
had  given  them  the  Christian  law,  which 
was  the  law  of  the  Heavenly  Father's  love.  He 
CHAPTER  kac*  brought  the  love  of  the  Father 
down  into  the  plane  of  obedience  to 
the  truth.  He  had  subdued  the  disorderly  nat- 
ural appetites ;  had  given  the  love  of  orderly 
living,  with  knowledge  of  genuine  good,  and 
affection  for  truth  for  the  sake  of  good.  He 
had  gathered  together  and  instructed  those  who 
received  these  things.  He  had  exposed  the  er- 
rors and  harmfulness  of  the  teachings  of  the 
church,  and  set  men  free  from  bondage  to  them. 
He  had  taught  and  illustrated  the  exceeding 
goodness  of  the  heavenly  life  and  of  its  enjoy- 
ments. He  had  done  all  that  Infinite  gentleness 
and  Infinite  wisdom  could  do  to  save  men.  The 

100 


THE  SPIRITUAL  LINK. 


Gentiles  had  received  Him.  The  church  in  Gal- 
ilee, following  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  which 
were  of  Jerusalem,  had  rejected  Him  ;  but  great 
multitudes  were  gathered  out  from  it  who  fol- 
lowed Him,  and  were  healed  by  Him. 

He  left  Galilee,  taking  with  Him  a  multitude 
of  those  who  believed  on  Him  —  taking  also  His 
own  gains  of  the  Divine  saving  love,  with  its 
power  of  beneficent  work  in  human  life  —  and 
came  into  the  country  beyond  the  Jordan,  through 
which  lay  His  road  to  Jerusalem.  This  road  was 
parallel  to  the  one  through  Samaria,  and  was  the 
connecting  link  between  Galilee  and  Judea.* 

*In  one  of  the  journeys  to  Jerusalem,  He  "sent  messengers 
before  His  face ;  and  they  went,  and  entered  into  a  city  of  the 
Samaritans,  to  make  ready  for  Him.  And  they  did  not  receive 
Him,  because  His  face  was  as  though  He  would  go  to  Jerusa- 
lem." Of  this  Swedenborg  says  :  "  The  city  of  the  Samaritans 
signifies  the  false  doctrine  of  those  who  reject  the  Lord;  because 
the  Samaritans  did  not  receive  Him  "  (Apocalypse  Explained, 
n.  223 ;  see  also  391,653).  When  false  doctrines  prevail,  His 
teaching  is  not  received ;  but  it  may  be,  in  the  parallel  Gentile 
state  of  good  works  with  desire  for  spiritual  instruction.  The 
road  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan  was  mostly  through  the 
territory  of  Gad  (a  Troop),  which  signifies  an  abundance  of  good 
works. 


102  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

Much  more  is  told  by  John  and  Luke  of  the 
work  in  Samaria  and  of  the  journeys  between 
Galilee  and  Judea,  which  represent  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  spiritual  mind  to  see  clearly  the  rela- 
tion between  the  Divine  in  the  inmost  and  the 
outward  life,  and  to  be  the  uniting  medium  be- 
tween the  celestial  and  the  natural.  In  Matthew 
and  Mark,  only  so  much  is  told  as  is  necessary  to 
establish  the  connection. 

And  first  comes  the  teaching  about  the  single- 
ness and  permanence  of  marriage — in  answer  to 
the  question  of  those  who  united  the  truth  re- 
vealed from  God  with  the  lusts  of  self-love.  To 
them  He  said  substantially,  that  every  truth  from 
God  was  one  with  good  in  God,  and  must  be 
united  with  its  own  good  in  men  —  men  leaving 
the  evils  of  their  natural  inheritance  and  desire, 
and  cleaving  to  the  good  from  God.  The  hard- 
ness of  men's  hearts  separated  truth  from  good  ; 
and  this  must  be  permitted,  that  men  may  be 
regenerated  in  freedom  ;  but  it  was  not  so  from 
the  beginning,  nor  is  it  of  the  Divine  purpose. 


DEGREES  IN  MARRIAGE. 


103 


In  three  degrees  men  may  be  pure  in  heart,  and 
may  come  into  the  marriage  of  truth  from  God 
with  love  from  God  :  —  they  may  receive  truth 
immediately  into  the  life  and  thus  grow  up  in  the 
heavenly  marriage  ;  or  they  may  receive  it  intel- 
ligently into  the  understanding,  and  come  into 
the  life  of  charity  by  living  it  faithfully ;  or  they 
may  come  into  some  degree  of  purity  and  of 
spiritual  marriage  by  a  simple  obedience  as  of 
themselves,  "for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake." 
In  one  of  these  degrees  the  good  love  from  God 
must,  be  united  with  the  truth,  or  man  has 
nothing  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  him. 

Then  follows  the  bringing  of  the  little  children, 
"that  He  should  put  His  hands  on  them,  and 
pray."  For  the  Divine  is  communicated  to  those 
who  are  innocent,  neither  claiming  nor  seeking 
aught  for  themselves,  but  depending  wholly  on 
their  Heavenly  Father,  as  His  little  children. 

And  now  follows  a  most  important  lesson  for 
all  to  learn,  who  have  been  diligent  in  acquiring 
the  truth  and  learning  to  live  it  —  that  there 


104  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

must  be  no  pride  in  knowing  the  truth,  nor  in 
faithful  abundant  good  life  from  it,  that  there 
may  be  a  sense  of  conjunction  with  God  in  it. 
The  thought  of  these  as  one's  own,  or  of  the 
possibility  of  having  any  good  as  one's  own,  is 
incompatible  with  the  sense  of  living  from  God 
which  constitutes  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

The  disciples  as  yet  knew  of  no  other  way 
than  to  do  good  of  themselves.  The  Lord  alone, 
from  the  Divine  in  Him,  knew  the  Divine  way, 
the  way  of  conjunction  between  God  and  man. 

Peter's  question  showed  the  willingness  of 
those  who  are  living  the  truth,  to  give  up  the 
self-life  for  the  Lord,  and  yet  also  the  expecta- 
tion of  reward.  The  Lord's  answer  taught  that 
the  truths  they  lived  should,  when  reborn  of  God, 
share  in  the  Divine  glory.  And  that  just  so  far 
as  they  gave  up  the  possessions  of  self  and  the 
care  for  self  they  should  receive  what  was  inno- 
cent and  deep,  and  full  of  life  from  God.* 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  724. 


HE  A  VEN  FROM  THE  LORD'S  MERCY. 


I05 


And  then  in  the  beautiful  parable  of  the 
laborers  in  the  vineyard,  He  taught  that  not 
CHAPTER  according  to  the  labors  in  acquiring 
truths  and  living  them  —  necessary 
though  these  may  be  —  are  the  rewards  of 
heaven  ;  but  according  to  the  innocence,  whether 
preserved  unharmed  from  childhood,  or  regained 
through  toil.  And  those  who  think  they  have 
earned  much,  will  receive  heaven  more  tardily 
than  they  who  know  they  have  earned  nothing, 
but  receive  of  the  Divine  Mercy  that  to  which 
they,  being  only  evil,  have  no  claim. 

The  Lord's  own  thorough  surrender  of  that 
which  could  claim  aught  for  self  was  expressed 
in  what  He  now  again  foretold  as  His  purpose 
in  going  up  to  Jerusalem.  The  very  slight  im- 
pression made  upon  the  disciples,  the  very  slight 
impression  it  has  ever  made  upon  the  Christian 
Church,  is  shown  by  the  petition  now  offered  by 
the  mother  of  Zebedee's  children  *  that  her  two 

*  It  will  be  remembered  that  it  was  Zebedee  who  remained  in 
the  ship  with  the  hired  servants,  when  James  and  John  followed 


io6  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

sons  might  sit,  one  on  the  right  hand  and  one 
on  the  left,  in  His  kingdom.  The  Lord  answered 
that  they  would  be  purified  in  following  Him,  even 
as  He  was  purified,  and  according  as  they  were 
prepared  they  would  receive  from  the  Father. 
And  then  He  emphasized  the  last  and  supreme 
lesson  of  the  journey,  that  a  gentle  humility 
which  had  no  regard  to  self,  but  would  minister 
and  serve  without  any  restraint  or  limit,  was  the 
only  greatness  He  possessed,  the  only  greatness 
He  had  to  bestow. 

These,  then,  are  the  lessons  of  the  last  journey 
to  Jerusalem.  They  will  be  seen  to  belong  to 
the  inner  mind,  where  is  the  spiritual  or  truly 
rational  thought,  which  brings  the  outer  life  of 
good  conduct  into  relation  with  the  inner  pres- 
ence of  the  Lord.  They  teach  the  unity  of  the 
truth  from  God  with  the  love  of  God ;  the  ne- 
cessity for  innocence,  the  ascribing  of  nothing 

the  Lord ;  and  now  the  mother  of  his  children  seeks  their  great- 
ness. So  does  the  zeal  of  natural  affection  for  even  the  noblest 
truths  of  the  church,  mingle  the  hope  of  greatness  with  the  love 
of  them. 


LESSONS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  107 

to  self,  that  the  love  of  God  which  is  heaven 
may  enter.  They  teach  that  pride  in  the  truth 
and  in  faithful  labor  is  a  hindrance  to  happy  life 
from  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  and  that  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  good  is  of  the  Divine  mercy  alone  is 
the  essential  condition  of  receiving  good ;  also 
that  the  essence  of  the  Divine  goodness  is  a 
gentleness  that  loves  to  serve  only,  and  would 
perish  if  the  thought  of  greatness  should  intrude. 
These  surely  are  just  the  lessons  needed  to  open 
the  plane  of  good  conduct  to  the  sense  of  life 
from  God.  And  it  will  not  have  escaped  notice 
that  they  are  in  substance  those  of  the  sixth 
chapter  of  Matthew  —  not  to  have  any  reflection 
upon  self,  or  sense  of  merit,  in  good  works  ;  to 
keep  the  heart  open  to  the  Lord  with  innocent 
acknowledgment  that  all  good  is  from  Him ;  to 
bear  willingly  and  cheerfully  the  chastening  ne- 
cessary to  remove  the  self ;  to  care  only  for  the 
Lord  and  heaven,  rejecting  self  and  the  world; 
to  be  trustful  and  innocent  as  the  birds  and  the 
lilies,  caring  only  to  do  the  work  of  each  day  from 


io8  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

the   Spirit   of  the   Lord,  and  trusting  all  else  to 
Him.* 

The  opening  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  is  now  the 
revelation  of  the  beautiful  life  of  service  from  the 
Spirit  of  God,  made  possible  by  the  presence  of 
that  Spirit  in  the  Divine  Human  of  the  Lord. 
It  is  the  opening  of  heaven  to  those  who  before 
saw  nothing  but  the  earth. 

*  Luke  places  a  large  part  of  this  teaching,  together  with 
much  more,  in  this  same  region  beyond  the  Jordan  —  not  in  the 
story  of  this  last  journey,  but  in  another  of  the  same  winter. 


OF  THE 

{  UNIVERSITY  ) 

OF 


EXPLORATION   OF   THE   TEMPLE 
OF  GOD. 


CHAPTER 
XXI. 


TT  7E  have  dwelt  long  upon  the  Lord's  work 
on  the  plane  of  conduct,  and  have  fol- 
lowed His  exploration  of  the  plane  of  motives,  by 
which  the  conduct  is  connected  with 
the  Divine.  Now  we  come  to  the 
direct  relation  of  the  soul  with  the  Divine  Pres- 
ence. That  Presence  existed  representatively  in 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  It  had  been  felt  in  an 
innocent  unrational  way  by  the  earliest  church 
upon  earth.  It  had  been  known  rationally,  its 
quality  perceived  in  contrast  with  the  inner  self, 
by  no  one.  A  new  development  of  the  rational 
faculty,  capable  of  apprehending  these  deeper 
things  in  the  soul,  was  necessary  before  this 
could  be  grasped,  and  the  inmost  conscious  mind 
set  in  order  for  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Divine. 

109 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


This  rational  development  then  existed  in  the 
Lord  alone,  and  is  only  now  slowly  taking  place  in 
the  human  race.  And  this  is  meant  by  the  colt, 
the  foal  of  an  ass,  on  which*  never  man  sat,  on 
which  Jesus  now  came  to  explore  the  temple  and 
the  church  at  Jerusalem.  The  ass  also  was  with 
the  colt ;  for  the  new  understanding  is  supported 
by  the  old,  and  is  not  different  from  it  except  in 
being  a  new  development  of  it.  As  a  King  the 
Lord  came,  the  King  of  the  daughter  of  Zion, 
because  He  was  now  the  supreme  truth  which 
was  to  set  humanity  from  its  inmosts  in  true 
relation  to  God.  They  put  their  clothes  upon 
the  colt,  or  spread  them  in  the  way,  and  cut 
down  branches  from  the  trees  and  strewed  them 
in  the  way,  representing  the  submission  of  all 
forms  of  life  and  all  perceptions  of  truth  to  this 
supreme  truth  of  the  relation  of  man  to  God. 
They  cried,  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David; 
Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord ;  Hosanna  in  the  Highest,"  because  in  Him 
and  through  Him  God  was  now  the  Saviour  of 
men. 


APPROPRIA  TION  OF  THE  DIVINE.  1 1 1 

In  the  temple  He  found  those  that  sold  and 
bought,  the  money-changers  and  them  that  sold 
doves  —  true  examples  and  representatives  of  the 
human  self  in  its  disposition  to  make  gain  of 
holy  truths  and  holy  goods,  to  appropriate  to 
self  and  make  gain  from  even  the  light  and  the 
love  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

He  healed  there  the  blind  and  the  lame  — 
those  who  knew  not  and  yet  would  know  the 
reality  of  the  Divine  Presence  revealed  only  in 
Him  ;  and  those  who  felt  their  inability  to  live 
from  it,  as  no  man  could  but  from  Him.  And 
there  the  children  cried  Hosanna,  in  innocent 
recognition.  But  the  chief  priests  and  scribes, 
representing  the  selfish  pride  in  holy  good  and  in 
holy  truth  from  God,  were  sore  displeased. 

In  Bethany,  where  Lazarus  was,  representing 
a  new  charity  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  He  lodged  ; 
and  from  there  returned  to  the  city.  He  hun- 
gered for  something  good  from  those  with  whom 
the  Presence  of  God  vainly  rested.  But  they 
were  a  tree  with  knowledge  from  the  Word,  but 


!I2  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

no  good  of  life.  And  now  their  end  was  come, 
and  the  kingdom  was  to  depart  from  them. 

He  tested  them  by  their  recognition  of  the 
Divine  authority  of  the  truth  of  life  which  John 
taught ;  but  to  them  it  had  no  such  authority. 
And  to  whom  that  basis  of  acknowledgment  is 
lacking,  there  can  be  no  recognition  of  the  Divine 
in  deeper  truth. 

Those  who  had  sinned  through  love  of  the 
world  and  of  pleasure,  suffered  themselves  to  be 
corrected  and  saved.  But  to  those  who  professed 
to  love  holy  things,  but  instead  of  correcting  their 
lives  by  them  used  them  to  justify  and  exalt  self, 
no  salvation  was  possible. 

The  vineyard  of  God  had  been  placed  in  their 
care,  but  every  demand  for  the  fruits  of  it  they 
had  resented ;  and  now  they  would  destroy  Him 
Whom  the  Father's  Love  had  sent  to  save  them 
—  Who  was  that  saving  Love  itself  teaching  and 
reasoning  with  them. 

And  yet  He  Whom  they  rejected  would  be  the 
corner  stone  of  a  new  chureh  which  now  would 


THE  MARRIAGE  FEAST. 


rise  as  they  should  pass  away.  Some  might 
unheedingly  stumble  upon  it,  as  did  the  publicans 
and  harlots,  and  would  suffer  for  their  heedless- 
ness  ;  but  they  upon  whom  it  should  fall,  in  total 
condemnation  of  their  misuse  of  the  truth,  would 
be  ground  to  powder. 

They  saw  now  that  they  must  destroy  Him,  or 
they  would  be  destroyed. 

But  Jesus  continued,  in  further  exploration  of 
their  relation  to  the  Divine  :  —  In  Him  a  marriage 
CHAPTER  witn  tne  Divine  was  offered  to  all,  and 
the  good  things  of  heaven  by  means 
of  it ;  but  they  despised  it.  The  simple  and 
uninstructed  would  be  gathered  in,  and  those  who 
received  instruction  would  be  clothed  in  the  gar- 
ments of  heaven,  but  those  who  trusted  in  their 
own  goodness  would  be  cast  out. 

Thus  ended  the  Divine  exploration  of  the 
church  which  should  be  the  means  of  conjunction 
between  God  and  men.  They  made  the  Lord's 
house  of  prayer  a  den  of  thieves.  They  had  the 
Word,  but  bore  not  its  fruit.  They  kept  not  its 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


teachings  of  life  either  literal  or  spiritual.  They 
were  unfaithful  husbandmen,  rendering  nothing 
of  the  fruitfulness  for  which  the  vineyard  had 
been  entrusted  to  them.  They  were  rejecting 
Him  Who  was  the  very  Presence  of  God  with 
men,  and  upon  Whom  the  church  must  be  built. 
They  were  refusing  the  heavenly  marriage,  and 
the  good  of  heaven,  which  God  in  Him  had  pro- 
vided for  them. 

But  falsity  confirmed  by  perversions  of  the 
Scriptures,  does  not  yield  without  an  attempt  to 
destroy  the  truth.  The  love  of  self,  in  the  form 
of  Pharisaical  pride  in  holiness,  combines  with 
the  love  of  the  world,  and  presently  with  the  love 
of  the  body  only,  to  ensnare  Him  with  their  false 
reasonings.  The  first  two  bring  the  question 
about  tribute  to  Caesar.  Neither  cares  anything 
for  God  except  in  name.  They  are  in  antagonism 
with  each  other,  the  one  .caring  only  for  a  free 
and  easy  life  in  the  world  as  the  highest  good, 
and  the  other  for  a  self-holiness  apart  from  the 
contamination  of  the  world.  But  they  unite  to 


TRIBUTE  TO 


ensnare  Him  Who  is  the  Presence  of  God  with 
men.  If  He  permits  tribute  to  Caesar,  the  pride 
of  holiness  in  the  name  of  God  will  flame,  and 
condemn  Him  as  not  of  God.  If  He  forbids  it, 
He  is  not  of  the  world,  and  should  be  condemned 
and  rejected  by  the  world. 

He  answers  them  with  an  even  justice  which 
silences  them  both.  From  their  own  lips  He 
gathers  the  confession  that  the  forms  of  life  are 
of  necessity  from  the  world,  though  the  substance 
of  good  is  from  God.  And  so  was  He.  The 
stamp  He  had,  the  forms  of  truth  He  learned,  as 
the  Son  of  Man.  The  life  and  substance  were 
of  God.  And  so  should  be  the  church  with  them 
—  in  the  world  and  adapted  to  the  world,  yet 
of  God. 

The  lovers  of  the  body  only,  who  deny  that 
there  is  any  life  apart  from  the  body,  next  attack 
Him.  They  tell  Him  of  seven  brethren,  who 
may  stand  for  themselves,  mere  forms  of  bodily 
lusts ;  of  a  woman,  who  is  the  truth  of  the  church 
with  them,  a  church  of  the  body  only,  with  no 


n6  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

spiritual  internal.  Serving  the  body  only  the 
truth  of  the  church  is  united  with  f  its  lusts,  and 
in  the  end  is  totally  destroyed,  so  that  neither  to 
it  nor  to  them  is  there  any  resurrection  to  life. 
This  was  their  condition.  Out  of  their  own 
mouth  they  were  judged.  Had  they  known  the 
Scriptures  which  are  the  truth  of  life  from  God, 
and  the  power  of  God  which  is  the  love  of  the 
good  life  according  to  the  truth,  they  would  have 
entered  into  the  heavenly  marriage  on  earth,  and 
in  the  resurrection  would  have  been  angels  of 
God  in  heaven.  For  all  who  are  in  the  marriage 
of  good  and  truth  of  any  degree  —  of  the  child's 
innocence  represented  by  Abraham,  of  the  intel- 
ligence represented  by  Isaac,  or  the  obedience 
represented  by  Jacob  —  live  in  heaven  with  heav- 
enly life  from  God,  though  they  who  are  spirit- 
ually dead  acknowledge  Him  not. 

The  account  in  Mark  indicates  that  it  was 
of  good  intent  that  the  "  lawyer "  now  asked 
Him,  Which  is  the  great  commandment  of  the 
Law?  —  to  learn  what  He  held  as  the  essential 


NO  LONGER  THE  SON  OF  DA  VID. 


117 


truth.  And  He  answered  :  "  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  first 
and  great  commandment.  And  the  second  is  like 
unto  it :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 
On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets "  —  the  absolutely  unselfish 
commandments  of  the  Divine  life. 

And  then  He  asked  them  in  turn :  "  What 
think  ye  of  Christ  ?  Whose  Son  is  He  ? "  And 
their  answer  showed  that  there  was  nought  in 
the  Christ  but  what  was  of  them,  that  they  would 
recognize ;  while  His  reply  was,  that  the  Divine 
in  Him  would  put  all  that  they  valued  under  foot. 

Their  effort  to  entangle  Him  was  ended.  It 
had  brought  from  Him  the  truth  of  God  by  which 
they  should  be  judged  —  that  the  church  should 
be  in  the  world,  and  adapted  to  the  world,  yet  of 
God :  that  the  truth  of  the  church  with  them 
was  made  to  serve  their  own  lusts,  and  was 
destroyed  thereby ;  whereas  the  truth  of  God 
should  be  united  with  the  love  of  God  in  a  mar- 


n8  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

riage  unto  eternal  life :  that  the  law  of  love  to 
God  and  the  neighbor  was  the  Divine  law  of 
heaven  and  earth :  that  the  Divine  of  God 
should  rule  in  all  things,  and  whatever  is  of 
man  should  serve  in  the  lowest  place. 

So  clear  and  simple  is  this  truth  of  God,  that 
the  subtleties  of  evil  can  make  no  answer,  but 
must  submit  to  be  judged  by  it. 


THE   CONDEMNATION. 


A  ND  now  their  judgment  follows,  which  would 
free  the  simple-hearted  from  their  yoke  : — 
They  had  the  law,  and  taught  truth  from  it  for 
the  common  people,  even  if  they  perverted  it 
CHAPTER  f°r  themselves.  Their  requirements 
were  heavy  for  people  who  must  live 
in  the  world,  but  they  separated  themselves  from 
the  world,  and  bore  none  of  the  burdens.*  They 
taught  truth  showily,  that  they  might  be  seen  of 
men,  and  have  honor  as  teachers  of  men.  The 
Lord's  followers  should  not  try  to  be  leaders,  but 
brethren,  loving  the  Lord,  children  of  one  Father. 
They  should  not  care  to  be  great,  but  to  serve 
and  do  good.  But  they  who  were  in  pride  of 
truth  and  of  holiness,  neither  sought  the  life  of 
heaven,  nor  permitted  others  to  seek  it,  but 

*  Arcana  Coelestia,  9825  ;  Apocalypse  Explained,  395. 

119 


MATTHEWS   GOSPEL. 


turned  the  faces  of  all  to  themselves.*  Those 
who  were  in  good  and  desired  truth  they  misled. 
They  had  the  Word  and  should  have  led  to  God 
and  heaven,  but  instead  they  led  to  hell,  even  by 
teachings  which  they  themselves  did  not  believe. 
The  gold  and  the  gift  which  were  of  men  they 
held  to  be  more  holy,  and  swearing  by  them  more 
binding,  than  the  altar  and  the  temple  —  when 
yet  the  altar  with  its  fires  stood  for  the  Lord 
uniting  men  to  Himself,  which  alone  gives  holi- 
ness to  the  gifts  of  affection ;  and  the  temple 
for  His  teaching  of  truth,  which  makes  holy  the 
good  of  their  lives. 

Their  own  wills  were  their  standard,  not  the 
Lord.  Outward  symbols  were  to  them  of  sole  im- 
portance, while  the  essentials  —  judgment,  mercy, 
and  faith  —  they  cared  not  for.  They  strained  out 
and  condemned  small  errors  of  appearances  only, 
but  fundamental  false  principles  of  morality,  like 
making  purity  in  mere  ceremonials  the  essential 
of  life,  they  accepted.  The  outward  forms  or 

*See  Arcana  Coelestia,  4844;  Apocalypse  Explained,  1121. 


THE  SUM  OF  ALL  EVIL.  I2i 

receptacles  of  truth  and  goodness  were  all  they 
attended  to,  not  heeding  the  falsity  and  evil  with 
which  they  were  filled.*  Woe  was  denounced 
upon  them  because  they  were  of  hell  and  tended 
thither.  They  professed  the  extremest  righteous- 
ness of  life  toward  God  and  men,  but  within  were 
full  of  hypocrisy  and  iniquity.  They  knew  the 
wickedness  of  their  fathers  in  rejecting  the  warn- 
ings of  God,  yet  they  themselves  were  rejecting 
and  destroying  much  more.  The  Lord  Himself, 
with  His  teachings  of  truth  and  of  good,  was 
the  fulfilment  of  all  that  the  prophets  had  repre- 
sented. Abel  the  keeper  of  sheep  stands  for 
those  who  keep  charity  and  mutual  love ;  and 
Zachariasf  who  warned  the  people  who  were 
serving  idols  and  representatives  of  evil,  "Why 
transgress  ye  the  commandment  of  Jehovah  ? " 
stands  for  such  warning  of  evil.  Both  the  love 
and  the  warning  they  had  in.  Him,  and  were  abso- 
lutely rejecting  them. 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  659. 
t  2  CHRON.  xxiv.  20-22;  Apocalypse  Explained,  329,  624,  655. 


122  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 

The  Love  of  God  in  Him  was  yearning  over 
them,  and  would  instruct  and  protect  them;  but 
they  rejected  both  its  kindness  and  its  truth. 
The  church  with  them  was  a  waste.  A  new 
church  must  now  be  raised  up  which  should 
acknowledge  the  Divine  in  His  Human,  and 
receive  the  good  and  truth  of  heaven  through 
that  acknowledgment. 

Thus  ended  the  teaching  in  the  temple,  the 
public  teaching  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem.  He  had 
shown  that  they  who  had  the  Word,  and  upon 
whom  rested  the  duties  of  the  Church  of  God, 
and  whose  temple  and  altar  represented  the 
Presence  of  God  with  men,  had  nothing  of  that 
Presence  in  their  hearts,  had  nothing  of  the  Word 
in  their  lives,  did  nothing  of  the  duty  of  the 
church ;  but  were  destroying  every  truth  and 
good  from  God.  Also  that  now  the  time  was 
come  for  their  mere  shell  of  a  church  to  be  ended, 
and  a  new  church  to  be  established  which  should 
rest  upon  Him,  and  receive  of  the  truth  and  love 
of  God  from  Him. 


PREDICTIONS   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


CHAPTER 
XXIV. 


HPHE  Lord  had  explored  the  church  at  Jerusa- 
lem, where  was  the  presence  of  God  and 
heaven  in  holy  representatives,  and  had  shown 
that  the  love  and  the  truth  of  that 
Divine  and  heavenly  Presence  were 
totally  destroyed  in  the  church  —  that  the  holy 
representatives  were  a  husk  only,  with  no  good 
fruit,  but  decay  and  corruption  within.  The 
Jews  were  doing  nothing  of  the  use  of  a  church 
in  making  known  and  interpreting  to  mankind 
the  Presence  of  God.  And  now  their  house 
should  be  deserted,  and  the  Divine  Presence, 
with  the  duty  and  the  privileges  of  the  church 
of  God,  should  be  given  to  those  who  would 
recognize  and  receive  the  Divine  in  the  Divine 
Human.  With  this  prediction  the  Lord  left  their 
temple  forever. 

But  it  was  needful  that  He  should  give  warn- 


I24 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


ing  of  the  affliction  that  should  come  upon  the 
Christian  Church  also.  And  He  made  use  of 
the  imagery  of  the  impending  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  to  describe  the  even  greater  misery 
which  for  a  little  time  should  come  upon  His 
own  church.  He  spoke  of  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  of  the  kingdom  unto  all  nations  ;  of  the 
abomination  of  desolation  standing  in  the  holy 
place  ;  of  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven  with  power  and  great  glory  —  words 
which  had  scarce  any  application  to  the  times 
immediately  at  hand,  but  were  to  have  a  thorough 
and  deep  fulfilment  when  men  had  learned  how 
self  would  appropriate  and  destroy  the  Christian 
good  and  truth  also,  and  should  be  able  to 
receive  the  Lord  once  more  in  a  profounder, 
juster  humility.  The  stones  of  the  temple  of 
which  He  was  thinking  were  the  Christian 
truths  of  which  He  was  even  now  building  His 
church,  and  which  should  presently  be  thrown 
down.* 

*  Summary  Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of    the  New  Church, 
71;  Apocalypse  Revealed,  191. 


THE  END  OF  HIS  CHURCH. 


I25 


He  "  sat  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives/'  in  a 
state  of  interior  union  with  the  Divine,  from 
which  He  saw  all  the  states  of  the  church.  To 
the  disciples  *  who  were  in  most  interior  states 
of  faith  and  love  and  good  life,  He  foretold  that 
the  church  would  come  into  temptations  from 
the  love  of  rule  by  means  of  Christian  truth, 
so  that  it  would  "  not  know  what  was  good  and 
what  true."  f  Falsified  truths  would  be  taught 
instead  of  genuine ;  \  quarrels  and  strife  would 
arise, §  and  conflict  of  evil  with  evil,  and  falsity 
with  falsity,  until  everything  good  and  true  in 
the  church  of  the  Lord  was  destroyed. 

There  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel  story  more 
fully  and  minutely  explained  by  Swedenborg  than 
these  chapters.  We  need  not,  therefore,  dwell 
upon  them  here,  further  than  to  note  that  "the 
abomination  of  desolation "  is  the  heavy  cloud 
of  evil  spirits  within  the  borders  of  the  Chris- 

*  Peter  and  James  and  John  and  Andrew  asked  Him  privately. 
(MARK  xiii.  3.) 

t  Arcana  Ccelestia,  3481. 
\  Apocalypse  Explained,  735.     §  Ibid.,  734. 


I26  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

tian  heaven,  cutting  off  the  influence  of  heaven 
from  men  upon  the  earth ;  *  that  Daniel  the 
prophet  is  the  truth  of  the  Word  as  to  judg- 
ment ;  and  that  unless  the  Lord  had  come  again 
to  judgment,  mankind  must  have  perished  from 
the  earth. 

In  the  clouds  of  heaven  He  would  come  — 
a  figure  familiarly  understood  as  the  opening 
of  the  parables  and  representatives  of  the 
Bible  to  show  the  Divine  life  pictured  every- 
where in  it.  And  by  the  truth  of  that  Divine 
life  the  church  should  be  judged.  They  would 
be  living  heedlessly,  as  if  the  Lord  were  not. 
But  He  should  come  with  the  fulness  of  Divine 
light  and  power,  and  the  light  should  search 
through  all  the  world,  separating  everywhere  the 
evil  from  the  good. 

Not  mere  knowledge  or  profession  should  then 
avail;  men  should  be  known  as  the  Lord's  dis- 
CHAPTER  ciples  solely  by  their  love  for  one 

xxv<         another. 

*  The  Last  Judgment,  posthiimous. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


127 


It  was  of  necessity  that  He  should  appear 
to  go  into  a  far  country;  for  the  race  was  just  en- 
tering upon  its  young  manhood,  and  must  choose 
its  course  in  freedom.  He  would  entrust  to 
them  the  abundant  experience  of  Christian  love 
which  His  Spirit  would  store  up  in  them,  repre- 
sented by  five  talents ;  the  charity  that  should 
come  later,  in  the  early  days  of  doctrinal  dis- 
cussion ;  and  the  truth  of  life  that  they  still 
might  live  if  they  would  when  these  failed. 
Wherever  love  and  charity  and  use  were  chosen 
as  the  things  to  be  sought  and  cherished,  the 
happy  things  of  heaven  would  be  multiplied  in 
the  church,  and  men  would  be  fitted  for  a  joyful 
expansion  of  life  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord. 
But  knowledge  alone,  unless  men  by  using  it 
gathered  intelligence  and  love  of  use,  was  a 
barren  thing,  which  they  who  did  not  live  it 
would  themselves  care  nothing  for.* 

And  last  of  these  direct  predictions  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  the  parable  of  the  separation 

*  Arcana  Ccelestia,  5291  ;  Apocalypse  Explained,  193. 


I28  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

of  the  sheep  from  the  goats.  The  sheep  are 
they  who  would  cultivate  charity  and  love ;  of 
them  the  Lord  would  form  His  Christian  heaven. 
The  goats  are  they  who  would  care  only  for 
knowledge ;  they  could  serve  only  as  warnings. 

These  two  chapters  thus  briefly  indicate  the 
whole  history  of  the  first  Christian  Church.  It 
is  also  the  history  of  the  first  Christian  experience 
in  those  who  later  come  to  see  how  the  love  of 
self  appropriates  that  experience  to  its  own  pride 
and  assurance,  and  how  the  pride  of  intelligence 
cares  for  nothing  but  the  knowledge  of  Christian 
truth,  with  no  regard  to  use.  It  is  inevitable 
that  there  should  be  such  manifestations,  at  least 
of  the  tendencies  of  the  self,  before  the  devel- 
oping man  sees  reason  for  the  deeper  exploration 
and  judgment,  which  are  necessary  to  the  removal 
of  the  self  from  the  inmost  consciousness,  and 
the  surrender  there  to  the  love  of  the  Lord. 

These  things  were  fulfilled  in  the  Lord's  own 
Human  at  the  time  He  was  speaking,  though 
they  were  not  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  church  for 


HIS  RIPE  EXPERIENCE.  I2g 

ages  to  come.  There  was  no  tendency  to  evil 
and  misappropriation  in  His  inherited  human 
which  He  did  not  thoroughly  explore  and  reject. 
There  was  no  depth  of  the  humiliation  of  the 
self  which  He  did  not  attain.  There  was  no 
conceivable  opening  of  the  human  heart  to  the 
Divine  love  which  was  not  effected  in  Him, 
even  to  the  absolute  union  of  the  Divine  and 
the  Human.  From  His  own  experience  of  the 
human  tendencies  and  possibilities  in  Himself, 
He  foresaw  and  foretold  what  was  coming  to 
the  church. 


JUDGMENT   AND    DELIVERANCE. 


"DESIDES  these  deeper  tendencies  which  He 
was  exploring  for  judgment,  there  yet 
remained  to  be  completed  the  judgment  upon 
CHAPTER  tne  Jewish  Church,  and  upon  that 
which  He  had  in  common  with  them. 
The  judgment  and  rejection  of  this  in  Himself 
was  also  the  judgment  and  rejection  of  the 
deeper  tendencies  which  He  had  already  ex- 
plored in  Himself,  and  which  would  appear  with 
the  development  of  a  maturer  rationality  in  the 
church.  The  historical  events  recorded  in  the 
coming  chapters  relate  to  both,  and  describe 
the  judgment  upon  the  Jewish  Church,  while 
they  represent  the  judgment  upon  the  Christian 
Church. 

The   Passover  was  at   hand  —  the  feast  which 
from  the  time   of   its   institution   in    Egypt   had 

130 


THE  ANOINTING.  131 

commemorated  both  judgment  and  deliverance. 
The  forces  of  appropriation  to  self  were  gathered 
together  to  destroy  the  Divine  of  the  Lord,  which 
would  only  serve  and  minister.*  "  In  Bethany  " 
the  Lord  was,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  —  in  the 
lowly  states  of  those  who  would  know  the  merci- 
ful love  of  God.  "  In  the  house  of  Simon  the 
leper,"  is  with  those  in  the  good  of  faithful 
worship  who  are  conscious  that  their  worship 
has  not  brought  conjunction  with  the  living  God, 
but  to  whom  the  merciful  love  of  God  is  present 
and  is  becoming  known  in  the  Lord  Jesus.  The 
woman  who  anointed  Him  is  the  affection  for 
the  truth  of  the  new  life  of  charity  from  God. 
The  ointment  is  the  symbol  of  the  Divine  with 
which  He  was  anointed  from  the  Lord  Jehovah. 
The  alabaster  box  may  represent  the  facts  of  her 
own  experience  of  it.  Her  pouring  it  on  His 
head  signifies  her  recognition  of  the  Divine  in 
Him  and  in  all  His  life.  The  protest  of  the 

*  "  Not  on  the  feast  day  "  is  equivalent  to  "  in  the  absence  of 
the  multitude,"  because  the  simple  good  believed  in  Him. 


I32 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


disciples  reveals  the  tendency  of  the  church  to 
make  gain  to  self  of  the  Divine  love  of  her 
Lord.  But  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  such  grate- 
ful acknowledgment  of  the  Divine  in  Him  is  an 
essential  of  His  church  which  will  always  be 
recorded  and  remembered. 

Judas  now  separates  himself  from  the  others, 
as  representing  the  desire  for  advantage  to  self 
from  the  holy  good  and  the  holy  truth  of  the 
Divine  in  the  Lord's  Human.  He  allied  himself 
with  the  chief  priests,  because  this  spirit  in  the 
Christian  Church  is  the  same  as  in  the  Jewish. 
The  thirty  pieces  of  silver  represent  the  small 
account  it  makes  of  the  saving  work  of  the  Lord.* 
His  betraying  the  Lord  to  the  priests,  means  the 
giving  up  of  this  redeeming  work,  that  the  love 
of  advantage  to  self  might  still  live. 

The  whole  history  of  the  Christian  Church 
shows  at  how  low  a  price  the  Lord's  redemption 
from  evil  has  been  valued,  and  how  this  has  been 
waived  that  the  love  of  making  gain  of  holy  good 

*  Arcana  Coelestia,  2966. 


THE  HOLY  SUPPER. 


133 


and  holy  truth  might  live  and  profit  by  Him. 
The  experience  of  every  one  who  reflects  will 
show  how  strong  this  tendency  still  is. 

But  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  betokening 
the  reception  of  pure  good  from  the  Lord,  was 
also  to  be  celebrated.  And  in  this  He  instituted 
a  visible  memorial  of  Himself  which  should  be 
as  Himself  when  He  should  not  be  visible.  For 
He  would  be  present  in  it — with  His  love  of 
service  in  the  bread,  and  His  thought  for  the 
good  of  men  in  the  wine.  They  should  testify, 
as  they  do  testify,  that  the  Divine  Human  of  the 
Lord  is  ever  with  us,  a  redeeming,  saving  Pres- 
ence to  every  one  who  will  receive  it. 

To  the  Lord  Himself  the  time  was  at  hand  for 

• 

the  laying  off  of  the  last  remnant  of  self,  and 
the  infilling  with  the  Divine.  After  which  from 
the  fulness  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  Him  all  might 
drink,  and  in  their  drinking  He  would  drink  with 
them. 


THE   LAYING   DOWN   THE    LIFE. 


TDUT  the  time  was  come.  They  knew  not 
what  was  meant  by  laying  down  the  self- 
life  to  live  from  God.  He  alone  knew.  He  alone 
must  overcome  the  accumulated  love  of  self  of 
the  whole  human  race,  resisting  in  Him  the  desire 
for  the  Divine  life.  He  must  meet  it  and  over- 
come it,  for  Himself  and  for  men,  and  be  Himself 
the  Divine  Presence  with  them,  or  men  would 
never  know  that  such  a  change  was  possible. 
Except  for  Him  it  would  neither  be  possible  nor 
conceivable.  But  after  it  was  accomplished  in 
Him,  He  said  that  He  would  be  with  them  again 
on  the  plane  of  good  conduct,  where  the  work 
must  begin  in  them. 

With  sincerity,  and  all  unconscious  of  the  self 
that  is  in  it,  the  first  natural  Christian  faith  be- 
lieves that  it  will  be  equal  to  any  test  of  disciple- 


GETHSEMANE.  135 


ship.  The  Lord  knows  what  is  within,  and  what 
it  must  pass  through,  for  He  Himself  has  experi- 
enced it. 

To  the  place  of  the  oil-press  He  went,  where 
the  olives  were  crushed  that  the  pure  oil  might 
flow  freely.  For  so  would  He  yield  His  human 
thought  and  effort  and  desire,  that  the  love  of 
God  for  men  might  flow  forth  from  Him  without 
limitation  or  impediment. 

All  the  disciples  went  with  Him  to  the  garden ; 
three  went  with  Him  a  little  further,  even  into 
the  state  of  sorrow  and  heaviness ;  but  He  went 
alone  a  little  further  still,  and  in  lowliest  prostra- 
tion, the  flesh  shrinking  and  sweating  great  drops 
of  blood  under  the  conflict,  He  prayed  three 
times  that  if  the  cup  might  not  pass  except  He 
drank  it,  the  Father's  will  might  still  be  done. 
All  this  was  densely  obscure  to  the  disciples.  It 
was  deep  beyond  their  knowledge.  They  could 
give  no  help.  But  the  conflict  paused,  and  He 
told  them  they  could  rest.  He  was  quiet,  no 
longer  struggling,  but  with  a  Divine  majesty  of 
self-submission  ready  to  lay  down  the  life  of  self. 


136  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

Judas  is  here  the  love  of  gain  to  self  from  the 
holy  good  and  truth  of  the  Divine  in  the  Lord. 
The  chief  priests  are  the  same  in  the  Jewish 
Church ;  the  elders  are  the  doctrines  of  evil  life 
agreeing  therewith  ;  the  great  multitude  are  the 
subordinate  evil  loves  and  teachings ;  the  swords 
and  staves  are  their  principles  of  falsity  and  evil. 
The  kiss  is  the  token  of  recognition  and  affection, 
here  for  advantage  to  self.  The  defence  with 
the  sword  is  by  the  faith  which  has  so  much  of 
self  in  it  that  it  presently  would  deny  the  Lord. 
And  because  it  expresses  the  spirit  of  condemna- 
tion and  not  the  love  of  saving,  itself  is  con- 
demned. The  Lord  would  not  pray  that  the 
angels  might  protect  Him,  or  the  Divine  Om- 
nipotence. He  would  fulfil  the  Scriptures,  and 
Himself  lay  down  the  life  of  self,  that  in  Him 
the  Divine  love  of  saving  might  dwell  with  men 
in  fulness. 

He  seemed  to  them  a  thief  because  He  was 
taking  from  them  the  kingdom  they  loved. 
Truly  they  themselves  were  thieves  and  robbers, 


THE  TABERNACLE  OF  GOD. 


in  taking  the  holy  things  of  God  to  themselves. 
They  had  made  the  Father's  house  a  den  of 
thieves  ;  but  He  sat  daily  there,  teaching  of  the 
Heavenly  Father,  and  they  could  not  condemn 
Him,  because  the  common  people  loved  it.  To 
them  it  was  the  Bread  of  Life. 

But  now  the  love  of  self  was  to  have  its  way, 
and  He  was  to  meet  it  by  laying  down  absolutely 
His  own  love  of  self.  He  was  going  too  deep 
for  the  disciples  to  follow.  He  alone  knew  the 
meaning  of  the  Scriptures  of  the  prophets.  He 
must  fulfil  it  alone.  Afterward  from  afar  off  men 
would  slowly  follow  Him. 

False  witnesses  accused  Him  of  saying,  "  I  am 
able  to  destroy  the  temple  of  God,  and  to  build 
it  in  three  days."  It  was  false  because  it  was 
they  who  had  destroyed  the  truth  of  God,  and 
would  destroy  the  temple  of  His  body.  His  part 
was  to  restore  the  Divine  Truth,  and  to  build  the 
Divine  Human  which  should  be  the  Tabernacle 
of  God  with  men  for  ever. 

Even  so  no  evil  could  be  shown  in  the  charge  ; 


I38  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

but  it  suggested  the  real  issue  between  them — • 
that  their  pride  of  holiness  must  give  place  to 
the  Father's  Presence  in  Him.  This  issue  the 
high  priest  now  was  determined  to  force ;  and  he 
said:  "I  adjure  Thee  by  the  living  God,  that 
Thou  tell  us  whether  Thou  be  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God."  "Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Thou  hast  said ; 
nevertheless  I  say  unto  you,  Hereafter  ye  shall 
see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of 
power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven." 
This  was  blasphemy  to  them,  for  it  was  the  de- 
struction of  their  claim  to  be  the  church  of  God. 
In  following  so  closely  the  application  to  the 
Jewish  Church,  we  nevertheless  may  have  in  mind 
the  deeper  application  to  the  tendency  of  human 
nature  to  appropriate  to  self  the  holy  good  and 
the  holy  truth  of  the  Divine  Presence  in  the  Lord. 
This  tendency  He  Himself  was  meeting  at  that 
very  time,  and  overcoming  by  the  total  surrender 
of  the  self-life,  for  no  possible  gain  to  self,  pres- 
ent or  future,  but  for  the  Divine  end  of  saving 
men. 


FAILURE  OF  CHRISTIAN  FAITH.  139 

The  patient  submission  to  buffeting  and  spit- 
ting, is  significant  of  the  humiliation  of  the  self, 
and  the  prevalence  of  the  Divine  love  of  saving. 

The  faith  of  the  Christian  Church  was  not 
equal  to  this  strain.  The  apostles  through  all 
their  lives  never  lost  the  hope  and  expectation  of 
sitting  upon  thrones  in  heaven,  judging  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel.  The  church  has  never  met  and 
overcome  the  tendency  to  use  holy  good  and  holy 
truth  for  advantage  to  self ;  but  on  the  contrary 
has  been  overcome  and  destroyed  by  it. 

That  this  would  be  so,  was  represented  by 
Peter's  denial  of  the  Lord.  The  discernment  of 
this  root  of  evil,  the  repentance  of  the  church, 
and  the  hope  of  a  deeper,  more  humble  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  Lord,  are  represented  by  the 
bitter  weeping. 

The  church  has  rejected  the  Lord  as  the  Pres- 
ence of  the  Heavenly  Father,  and  has  incited  the 
CHAPTER  world  to  reject  Him.  By  perverting 

xxvn*  its  faith  and  its  charity,  it  has  de- 
stroyed His  true  character,  and  made  Him  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  a  fraud  and  a  pretender. 


140 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


Judas  had  acted  out  his  self-love,  as  Peter  also 
had  shown  his.  And  he  too  repents,  bringing 
back,  as  now  worthless,  what  the  self  had  desired, 
and  despairing  because  of  the  loss  of  the  Lord. 
Will  not  the  church  in  like  manner  repent  of  her 
sin  of  appropriating  holy  good  and  holy  truth  to 
self,  and,  despairing  of  ever  being  able  to  receive 
them  worthily,  condemn  herself  utterly.  And 
then  may  there  not  be  given  so  strong  a  sense 
that  these  holy  things  are  the  Lord's,  and  are 
with  us  of  His  Mercy,  that  they  will  not  be  so 
misappropriated  ? 

The  sin  of  Judas  was  the  same  as  that  of  the 
priests ;  yet  he  repented,  and  they  did  not.  Is 
not  this  a  sign  of  hope  for  the  Christian  Church, 
as  well  as  for  Judas  ? 

The  thirty  pieces  of  silver  Swedenborg  says 
stands  for  the  "little  esteem  for  the  merit  of  the 
Lord  and  redemption  and  salvation  by  Him ;  the 
potter,  for  reformation  and  regeneration."*  That 
the  silver  was  given  for  the  potter's  field,  "to 

*  Arcana  Ccelestia,  2276. 


A  CHURCH  OF  THE  GENTILES. 


bury  strangers  in,"  means  then  that  the  Lord's 
redemption  and  salvation,  so  lightly  esteemed, 
were  made  over  to  the  Gentiles  for  their  reforma- 
tion and  regeneration,  and  thus  resurrection  to 
life. 


COERCION  OF   THE   WORLD   BY   THE 
CHURCH. 


"  HPHE  governor"  is  the  government  of  the 
world,  the  rule  of  natural  law.  Before 
this  Jesus  stands,  confessedly  the  fulfilment  and 
exemplification  of  the  Scriptures  — "  the  King 
of  the  Jews."  To  the  many  accusations  by  self- 
love  and  perverse  doctrines  He  answers  nothing, 
for  they  do  not  touch  the  Reality  which  He  is. 
It  is  the  Passover,  a  feast  of  condemnation 
and  a  feast  of  release.  Jesus  stands  for  the 
subjection  of  the  self  to  the  Divine  love  of  doing 
good ;  and  Barabbas,  for  the  murderous  turbu- 
lence and  violence  of  the  self,  throwing  off  re- 
straint. We  remember  .Christian  centuries  in 
which  the  church  with  its  Inquisition  stood  for 
cruelty  and  violence,  and  compelled  the  rulers 
of  the  world  to  do  its  bidding.  We  recognize 


CRUELTY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


the  same  tendency,  in  the  love  of  gain  from  holy 
things,  to  enmity  and  violence,  whenever  it  is 
crossed. 

All  that  tendency  to  resentment  and  violence 
the  Lord  was  now  meeting,  and  subduing  in 
Himself  by  the  power  of  the  Divine  Love.  The 
conflict  was  tremendous,  the  victory  complete. 
Quietly  and  gently  He  bore  all  that  they  could 
do  to  Him. 

Not  Pilate,  but  the  priests,  condemned  Him. 
Not  natural,  moral,  or  civil  law,  but  the  church, 
has  incited  the  cruelest  things  that  have  ever 
been  done  in  Christendom.  And  this  has  been 
because  the  love  of  appropriating  to  self  the  holy 
good  and  the  holy  truth  of  the  Lord,  is  the 
cruelest,  wickedest  thing  there  is  in  the  heart 
of  man.  The  moral  good  of  the  community, 
the  moral  sense,  protests ;  though  not  under- 
standing the  evil,  which  is  as  a  dreadful  dream. 
The  moral  and  civil  rule  is  free  from  the  blame. 
The  tyranny  of  the  church  bears  all  before  it. 

The  world  yields,  accepting   the   judgment    of 


144 


MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 


the  church  of  her  own  King.  They  ignore  the 
humility  and  unpretentiousness  with  which  the 
Lord  came  to  save  men,  and  ridicule  His  claim 
to  royal  goodness  and  truth  and  power.  In  His 
own  raiment  of  humility,  as  the  truth  of  God 
accommodated  to  men  in  love  and  mercy,  they 
crucify  Him.  Another  Simon,  from  a  Gentile 
country,  their  violence  compels  to  share  in  His 
condemnation.* 

In  the  place  of  a  skull  —  where  are  only  the 
bony  externals  of  the  Word,  with  no  life  in  them 
—  they  crucify  Him ;  for  such  was  the  Word 
with  the  church.  In  the  evil  thinking  of  the 
church  He  had  no  part.  The  letter  of  the  Scrip- 
tures treating  of  Him  they  rent  and  shaped  as 
they  pleased.  The  spirit  was  protected  from 
them  by  the  Providence  of  God.  His  accusation, 
for  which  He  was  condemned,  was  that  He  would 
have  saved  men  from  the  evil  of  their  self -life, 

* "  He  bearing  His  cross,"  means  bearing  His  own  condem- 
nation. To  bear  it  for  Him  would  be  an  act  of  sympathy. 

Simon  was  "the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,"  who  appear 
to  have  been  well  known  Christians  later.  (ROMANS  xvi.  13.) 


THE  HOUR  OF  DARKNESS. 


and  taught  them  the  life  of  charity  —  Jesus,  the 
King  of  Jews. 

With  thieves  *  they  crucified  Him,  because  His 
resisting  the  appropriation  of  holy  things  to  self 
would  take  the  kingdom  from  them.  They 
taunted  Him  with  inability  to  save  His  own  life, 
when  in  fact  at  that  very  time  He  was  laying 
down  the  life  of  self  which  He  abhorred,  that  He 
might  take  on  the  Divine  life,  pure  and  sweet 
and  loving,  in  which  He  delighted.  If  He  would 
have  saved  the  self-life  they  would  have  accepted 
Him.  The  Divine  in  Him  they  despised  and 
rejected.  At  the  hour  which  should  have  stood 
for  the  brightest  light,  there  was  darkness  over 
all  the  church  until  the  night  drew  near. 

The  words  of  the  twenty-second  Psalm  describe 
the  sense  of  the  Human  mind  that  it  was  left 
alone  ;  which  was  indeed  so  that  it  might  of  itself 


*The  thieves  perhaps  represent  those  who  followed  Him,  and 
shared  in  His  condemnation  —  "  the  same  as  by  the  sheep  and 
the  goats;  wherefore  it  was  said  to  the  one  who  acknowledged 
the  Lord,  that  he  should  be  with  Him  in  Paradise."  Apocalypse 
Explained,  600. 


146  MATTHEWS  GOSPEL. 

use  its  Divine  power  to  put  off  the  self  and  unite 
with  the  Father's  love.  The  rejoicing  with  which 
the  Psalm  closes,  we  may  also  ascribe  to  the  Lord 
when  this  was  attained. 

The  sympathy  of  men  was  limited  to  the  letter 
of  truth,  and  their  imperfect  understanding  of  its 
life.  He  accepts  such  sympathy  ;  but  even  the 
letter  teaches  the  laying  down  of  the  life ;  and 
this  the  Lord  obeys. 

It  was  not  merely  the  love  for  physical  life, 
and  for  self-vindication  and  honor  from  men  that 
He  laid  down,  but  the  claim  to  holiness  and  honor 
for  the  possession  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  which 
the  self-love  afterward  produced  in  the  Christian 
Church,  for  its  destruction ;  and  the  further  pride 
of  understanding  the  deep  things  of  the  Word, 
which  the  same  self-love  must  still  produce. 
Absolutely  all  the  desires  of  the  self  for  advan- 
tage from  holy  things  He  gave  up,  turning  from 
them  and  separating  Himself  from  them  in  volun- 
tary surrender  to  the  Father's  love.  He  gave 
them  up  for  ever ;  and  all  in  Him  that  could  admit 
such  desires,  He  put  off. 


THE   LAW  OF  THE  RELATION  TO  GOD. 


'T^HE  work  at  Jerusalem  was  finished ;  and  in 
it  we  see  illustrated  the  full  meaning  of 
the  third  section  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
the  Christian  Law.  They  had  judged  Him  to 
death,  rejecting  in  Him  the  love  and  the  truth 
of  God  and  all  that  makes  heaven.  This  was 
their  own  judgment.  Their  whole  care  was  given 
to  the  motes  of  external  observance,  and  they 
gave  no  thought  to  the  beam  of  pride  of  holiness 
which  shut  out  from  their  sight  everything  good 
and  true  from  God  and  heaven.  The  holy  things 
of  the  Word  and  of  worship  were  given  to  the 
selfish  lusts  represented  by  dogs  and  swine,  and 
were  trampled  in  the  mire  of  foul  life,  while 
spiritual  life  was  destroyed.  The  Lord  had 
brought  to  them  in  their  temple  the  Presence 
of  the  Heavenly  Father,  and  offered  them  the 


147 


148  MATTHEW'S   GOSPEL. 

good  gifts  that  the  Father  loved  to  give.  These 
they  might  have  for  the  asking ;  with  the  condi- 
tion that  they  would  observe  the  law  of  heaven : 
"  All  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  They  were 
warned  to  enter  heaven  by  this  gate;  but  they 
preferred  the  broad  way  of  the  love  of  self. 
They  were  false  prophets,  professing  to  be  the 
flock  of  God,  but  really  ravening  wolves  —  chil- 
dren of  the  devil.  They  were  an  evil  tree  bear- 
ing evil  fruits.  They  professed  to  worship  the 
God  of  heaven,  to  teach  His  Word,  and  to  make 
many  proselytes.  But  it  was  all  for  their  own 
glory.  The  God  of  heaven  was  not  in  their 
work. 

The  Lord  Himself  had  exemplified  the  keep- 
ing of  the  Law.  He  had  come  to  save,  not  to 
condemn  ;  and  had  condemned  evil  only  to  save 
the  good.  His  judgment  was  the  judgment  of 
the  love  of  God,  with  self-love  wholly  removed. 
No  dogs  or  swine  in  Him  defiled  or  resented 
the  holy  truth  and  good  of  God.  The  gifts 


THE  DIVINE  EXAMPLE. 


149 


of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  Him  He  offered  them, 
knowing  how  exceedingly  good  they  were.  The 
way  which  led  to  life  He  walked  and  showed. 
The  truth  of  love  He  taught,  not  for  Himself, 
but  from  Love  itself.  He  was  a  good  tree,  the 
very  Tree  of  Life,  bearing  every  good  fruit. 
The  Heavenly  Father  was  with  Him,  well  pleased 
with  His  saving  work. 

His  house  was  the  house  of  God,  built  upon 
the  eternal  Rock,  and  nothing  that  they  could 
do  could  shake  it ;  while  theirs  was  built  upon 
the  disconnected  letter  of  the  Word,  with  no 
hold  upon  Him  Who  was  the  life  of  the  Word  ; 
and  now  it  was  falling,  and  great  was  the  fall 
of  it.  What  He  had  of  their  nature  from  them 
fell  too  ;  but  it  was  only  the  removing  of  the 
scaffolding  to  disclose  the  glorious  temple  within. 

The  veil  of  mere  representatives  was  now  rent 
in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  that  the 
love  and  the  truth  of  God  might  come  forth 
unveiled.*  The  change  that  was  coming  over 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  400. 


MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL. 


the  church  was  represented  by  the  quaking  of 
the  earth ;  the  breaking  up  of  false  dogmas, 
by  the  rending  of  the  rocks  ;  the  new  freedom 
to  the  spirits  of  men  in  both  worlds,  by  the 
opening  of  the  graves,  and  the  appearance  of 
the  saints  to  many. 

The  candid  world  has  seen  these  changes  in 
the  past,  and  is  seeing  them  in  their  present 
more  wonderful  form ;  and  it  will  say,  "  Truly 
this  was  the  Son  of  God."  Women  are  watch- 
ing afar  off,  which  are  affections  for  truth  cen- 
tring in  Him,  and  must  wait  until  He  is  re- 
vealed to  them  —  in  the  fullest  sense,  as  the  life 
of  the  Word.  And  the  recognition  of  and  love 
for  the  Divine  in  the  Lord,  for  which  Joseph 
stands,  lays  up  the  memory  of  His  life  in  its 
own  ideal  and  hope  of  heaven,  which  the  Lord 
has  taught  it  to  hew  out  in  the  Word.* 

The  Marys  are  watching  and  waiting  —  Mary 
Magdalene,  the  affection  for  Him  as  the  truth 

*  As  burial  stands  for  the  resurrection,  so  the  tomb  stands  for 
the  place  of  resurrection,  or  heaven.  Also  for  the  regenerate 
state. 


WAITING  FOR  THE  WORD. 


which  saves  from  evil ;  and  Mary  the  Mother, 
affection  for  the  truth  which  reveals  the  good- 
ness of  God. 

They  wait  for  the  Word  to  open ;  while  self- 
love  and  pride  in  holiness  would  seal  up  the 
spirit  of  love  and  charity  in  the  Word  that 
nothing  of  it  might  appear,  for  their  condem- 
nation. These  impress  upon  the  Word  the  seal 
of  their  interpretation,  to  keep  it  closed. 


THE   NEW   STATE   OF   THE    CHURCH. 


'T^HE   representative   of   a   Sabbath,    with   the 

Spirit   of    the    Lord   rejected,  and   nought 

but  the  pride  of  holiness  and  of  self-intelligence 

CHAPTER      in  it,  has   ended.     Even  as  the  Marys 

xxvin.       are  comjng  to  seCj  ancj  to  testify  to  the 

holiness  of  the  truth  they  have  seen  and  known, 
the  angel  of  the  Divine  Presence  opens  the  Word, 
and  inaugurates  a  new  state  of  the  church.*  It 
is  to  be  a  state  of  good  life,  in  which  the  Lord 
should  be  with  them,  and  be  seen  of  them.  Jesus 
Himself,  the  saving  Love  of  God,  they  see,  which 
confirms  this  promise. 

The  love  of  self  and  the  love  of  self-intelli- 
gence, give  large  rewards  of  flattery  and  wealth 
to  their  minions  to  deny  the  reality  of  the  Pres- 
ence of  the  Lord  in  the  Word,  and  make  it  a 

*  Apocalypse  Explained,  400. 

152 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  THE  WORD  DENIED. 


'53 


fiction  of  the  credulous ;  and  even  so  does  it 
appear  to  this  day  to  the  lovers  of  self  and  the 
world. 


RETURN   TO   GALILEE. 


"OUT  upon  "the  mountain"  in  Galilee  —  the 
same  words  which  describe  the  place  where 
the  Christian  law  was  given,*  and  representing 
the  presence  of  the  Love  of  God  in  the  plane 
of  good  life  —  He  who  is  now  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Law  again  appears  to  the  faithful,  though  at 
first  not  clearly  understood.  He  comes  as  the 
truth  of  the  love  of  God,  with  all  the  power  of 
that  love  in  heaven  and  on  earth. 

He  has  taught  the  law  of  Christian  life  as  the 
law  of  God,  and  has  made  the  plane  of  conduct 
wholesome  and  orderly,  use-loving  and  wise,  from 
His  presence  in  it,  protected  from  evil  infesta- 
tions. He  has  taught  purity  and  unselfishness 
of  motive  in  good  conduct ;  with  no  claim  of 
merit  or  reflection  upon  self ;  but  faithful  love 

*  MATTHEW  v.  i. 

154 


THE  LORD  IN  THE  WORD  FOREVER.     155 

for  Him  Who  alone  is  good  and  wise,  and  inno- 
cent ascription  of  all  good  to  Him.  He  has 
taught  the  entire  surrender  of  the  heart  and 
soul  and  mind  to  the  Father's  love,  with  no 
pride  of  holiness  or  of  intelligence,  and  no  desire 
for  any  good  in  life  but  the  good  of  living  from 
His  Spirit,  under  His  protection. 

All  this  He  has  taught  and  lived.  In  the 
glory  of  the  Heavenly  Father's  Love  He  comes 
now  in  the  plane  of  good  life,  filling  it  from  the 
inmost  with  the  sense  of  the  Presence  of  God. 
And  to  those  who  receive  Him  He  gives  the 
charge  to  make  Him  known  to  all  who  are  in 
good,  that  they  may  be  enrolled  among  those 
who  receive  the  Father's  Love  in  the  Truth  of 
His  Human  life,  and  live  from  His  Spirit. 

And  this  Gospel  through  Matthew  closes  with 
the  exhortation  to  observe  all  things  of  this 
Christian  Law  which  the  Lord  has  commanded ; 
and  the  promise  of  His  presence  always,  as 
long  as  the  church  shall  endure.  Amen. 


\  &  R  Afl 
or  THE 

UNIVERSITY  J 
OF          J 

cs>»U\l^/ 


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